We applaud Joakim Noah decide though it was probably hard, we just want to personally thank him for his decision of showing off his true character. And also, setting what we here think is a great example for young kids today. This is truly a lesson to learn kids stay in school. Though, we know Noah had a hard decision, but just think about it. If he goes to the NBA, the carefree days of college life is over, and over in a hurry. Though, everyone and especially media is going to say well if he doesn't go now he is going to cost himself money, chances of top pick, and etc.
Though our rebuttal to all that is...whatever happend to education first, to education is money, and caring more of the future through education. That's what we feel here is the most important.
A perfect example of this is look at Jay Williams, or some might know him has Jason Williams from Duke. Oh yea where is he now? Do you see him in NBA?
Ultimately, Jason Williams decided to take a chance and go back to school. And though at the time, people thought he was crazy. Now knowing what we all know. I think people are saying it was a pretty smart move!
Jump ahead two years, to Jay William's motorcycle accident in June 2003, right after his rookie season with the Chicago Bulls. That's when he discovered his decision to stay in school was pretty good after all.
At Duke his junior year, and even after that, he admits this is where he formed a lot of connections, and that turns out to be the one of the most valuable things he recieved from staying in school.
When he was injured, he automatically was able to reach out to people and find opportunities and find something to do with myself. He was able to use his degree from Duke (If he had graduated after my junior year and entered the NBA) and he had so many sources of support and contacts that he don't think he would have had if he had left after his sophomore year.
That's when he realized the importance of his college years. That's something that ever athlete should come to realize.
We just want to say again Thanks to Joakin Noah for being a little different these days!
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Kobe's nasty dunk!
This was a nasty dunk for Kobe! WOW, where was the MVP on that play!! The thing that is impressing me the most, and I honestly don't know where the credit is due if not to all. That the Lakers look like a completely different TEAM! I state team meaning that it was Kobe before, but now it's actually TEAM with energy and fire! I don't know if that's Phil Jackson, Kobe, or what. But, I am actually enjoying and especially with highlights like this!
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Why do you love this game
The NBA, African Americans Love This Game!
*Professional Basketball is entering its All-Star break and on this date we look at its Black history. As a team sport it has been transformed by the presence of African-Americans.
This story has progressed with the cultural, political, and social changes in the United States for more than 100 years. The game was created in 1891; African-Americans entered the ranks of professional players (the NBA) in the 1950s. Since then, it has become one of the most popular and exciting games in the world. Black players in the NBA have helped to transform the game into a billion-dollar industry.
The games culture has become important as fashion, with logos of American professional teams found on the clothing the world over. But with the elegance and power of black athleticism capturing the respect and admiration of the world, for years it was isolated, as segregation split America along racial lines. Some of the earliest all-black club teams, were the Smart Set Athletic Club of Brooklyn, New York, the St. Christopher's Club of New Jersey, and the Loendi Club from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, produced high-scoring, action-packed games. Eastern club teams in New York, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, astonished crowds. Two of the most famous African-American club teams were the Harlem Renaissance Big Five (known as the Rens) and the Savoy Big Five (now known as the Harlem Globetrotters).
The Rens dominated club play for 16 years, between 1923 and 1939 they won more than 1,500 games and lost fewer than 240. After Chuck Cooper joined the Boston Celtics in 1950, becoming the first African-American to play in the NBA, blacks took what was once a highly mechanical and rigid game and developed it into a forum for their self-expression. Bill Russell, and Wilt "The Stilt" Chamberlain—who both stood close to 7 ft tall—elevated the game with their thunderous slam-dunks and graceful lay-ups. In college Russell led the University of California at San Francisco to two national titles and as a professional helped to lead the Boston Celtics to nine NBA titles. Chamberlain played 14 years in the NBA (1959-1973) and was an all-star for 13 of those years. He set a single-game scoring record in 1962 when he scored 100 points against the New York Knickerbockers. Chamberlain amassed more than 31,000 points and 23,000 rebounds during his career, second only to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
While Russell and Chamberlain set new standards for the position of center, players such as Elgin Baylor and Oscar Robertson introduced speed and agility to the NBA. Baylor, led the Los Angeles Lakers to the 1968 finals and scored 71 points in a single game. Robertson, played on the 1960 gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic basketball team, became an all-star in the NBA and had almost 10,000 assists during his career. Still the most dramatic effect of integration on the game was an increase in the number of players from urban environments. These men played what some call street basketball. The influence of this style was most obvious during the 1970s with a number of players from urban backgrounds. Earl "The Pearl" Monroe, Julius "Dr. J." Erving, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar pushed the game into a faster pace, and higher scoring.
Monroe, a classy dribbler and great passer, was named rookie of the year after his first season with the Baltimore Bullets. Julius Erving led the New York Nets of the American Basketball Association (ABA) to consecutive titles in 1974 and 1975 before joining the Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA. Dr. J, as Erving was known, was one of the most creative players in the league. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a conscientious and innovative athlete easily dunked the ball over his opponents and developed a new and virtually unstoppable move known as the Sky-Hook. He helped lead the Los Angeles Lakers to five NBA titles during his 25-year career and set the standard for contemporary centers to this day. Other standouts of this era included Willis Reed, who played with a broken leg during the seventh game of the 1970 NBA finals, his teammate Walt Frazier, and Elvin Hayes of the Washington Bullets, each of whom were also products of street basketball.
Together they helped to bring new energy, excitement, and confidence to professional basketball. By the late 1980s basketball stardom belonged to players such as Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. Johnson left college after his sophomore year to join the Los Angeles Lakers, and during his rookie season played a pivotal role as the Lakers closed the season as NBA champions. Jordan also left college early to join the Chicago Bulls. Many describe him as the best basketball player of all time. His energy, enthusiasm, and last-minute heroics produced six NBA crowns for Chicago before he retired in 1998.
Currently, the game is poised to extend farther geographically and teams may crop up in the Far East, Europe, and South America. Familiar names like Shaq, Kobe, and others are “Big Ticket” players. The youth movement of LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Carmello Anthony continue a trend of younger and younger players turning professional. The history of American basketball tells a compelling story about athletic competition in a nation struggling to live up to its ideals of freedom and democracy.
Segregation forced African-American basketball players to develop a unique game that is distinctly urban, relentlessly innovative, and always stylistic. Today pro basketball is about the head fake and the swagger, the finger roll and the skyhook; it's about the jump shot and the crossover dribble. It still requires movement without the ball and being a team player. The sport requires more athleticism, as men are bigger and stronger over the years.
Basketball is also about wearing the latest shoes and having the nicest haircut or braids. It is about playing the game above the rim, meaning not just whether or not points are scored, but the way in which they are scored and the game is played. Basketball has been transformed by the presence of African-Americans, and is an indicator of the cultural, political, and social changes in the United States.
Reference:
The Encyclopedia of African-American Heritage
by Susan Altman
Copyright 1997, Facts on File, Inc. New York
ISBN 0-8160-3289-0
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
1000 West Columbus Avenue
Springfield, MA 01105
*Professional Basketball is entering its All-Star break and on this date we look at its Black history. As a team sport it has been transformed by the presence of African-Americans.
This story has progressed with the cultural, political, and social changes in the United States for more than 100 years. The game was created in 1891; African-Americans entered the ranks of professional players (the NBA) in the 1950s. Since then, it has become one of the most popular and exciting games in the world. Black players in the NBA have helped to transform the game into a billion-dollar industry.
The games culture has become important as fashion, with logos of American professional teams found on the clothing the world over. But with the elegance and power of black athleticism capturing the respect and admiration of the world, for years it was isolated, as segregation split America along racial lines. Some of the earliest all-black club teams, were the Smart Set Athletic Club of Brooklyn, New York, the St. Christopher's Club of New Jersey, and the Loendi Club from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, produced high-scoring, action-packed games. Eastern club teams in New York, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, astonished crowds. Two of the most famous African-American club teams were the Harlem Renaissance Big Five (known as the Rens) and the Savoy Big Five (now known as the Harlem Globetrotters).
The Rens dominated club play for 16 years, between 1923 and 1939 they won more than 1,500 games and lost fewer than 240. After Chuck Cooper joined the Boston Celtics in 1950, becoming the first African-American to play in the NBA, blacks took what was once a highly mechanical and rigid game and developed it into a forum for their self-expression. Bill Russell, and Wilt "The Stilt" Chamberlain—who both stood close to 7 ft tall—elevated the game with their thunderous slam-dunks and graceful lay-ups. In college Russell led the University of California at San Francisco to two national titles and as a professional helped to lead the Boston Celtics to nine NBA titles. Chamberlain played 14 years in the NBA (1959-1973) and was an all-star for 13 of those years. He set a single-game scoring record in 1962 when he scored 100 points against the New York Knickerbockers. Chamberlain amassed more than 31,000 points and 23,000 rebounds during his career, second only to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
While Russell and Chamberlain set new standards for the position of center, players such as Elgin Baylor and Oscar Robertson introduced speed and agility to the NBA. Baylor, led the Los Angeles Lakers to the 1968 finals and scored 71 points in a single game. Robertson, played on the 1960 gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic basketball team, became an all-star in the NBA and had almost 10,000 assists during his career. Still the most dramatic effect of integration on the game was an increase in the number of players from urban environments. These men played what some call street basketball. The influence of this style was most obvious during the 1970s with a number of players from urban backgrounds. Earl "The Pearl" Monroe, Julius "Dr. J." Erving, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar pushed the game into a faster pace, and higher scoring.
Monroe, a classy dribbler and great passer, was named rookie of the year after his first season with the Baltimore Bullets. Julius Erving led the New York Nets of the American Basketball Association (ABA) to consecutive titles in 1974 and 1975 before joining the Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA. Dr. J, as Erving was known, was one of the most creative players in the league. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a conscientious and innovative athlete easily dunked the ball over his opponents and developed a new and virtually unstoppable move known as the Sky-Hook. He helped lead the Los Angeles Lakers to five NBA titles during his 25-year career and set the standard for contemporary centers to this day. Other standouts of this era included Willis Reed, who played with a broken leg during the seventh game of the 1970 NBA finals, his teammate Walt Frazier, and Elvin Hayes of the Washington Bullets, each of whom were also products of street basketball.
Together they helped to bring new energy, excitement, and confidence to professional basketball. By the late 1980s basketball stardom belonged to players such as Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. Johnson left college after his sophomore year to join the Los Angeles Lakers, and during his rookie season played a pivotal role as the Lakers closed the season as NBA champions. Jordan also left college early to join the Chicago Bulls. Many describe him as the best basketball player of all time. His energy, enthusiasm, and last-minute heroics produced six NBA crowns for Chicago before he retired in 1998.
Currently, the game is poised to extend farther geographically and teams may crop up in the Far East, Europe, and South America. Familiar names like Shaq, Kobe, and others are “Big Ticket” players. The youth movement of LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Carmello Anthony continue a trend of younger and younger players turning professional. The history of American basketball tells a compelling story about athletic competition in a nation struggling to live up to its ideals of freedom and democracy.
Segregation forced African-American basketball players to develop a unique game that is distinctly urban, relentlessly innovative, and always stylistic. Today pro basketball is about the head fake and the swagger, the finger roll and the skyhook; it's about the jump shot and the crossover dribble. It still requires movement without the ball and being a team player. The sport requires more athleticism, as men are bigger and stronger over the years.
Basketball is also about wearing the latest shoes and having the nicest haircut or braids. It is about playing the game above the rim, meaning not just whether or not points are scored, but the way in which they are scored and the game is played. Basketball has been transformed by the presence of African-Americans, and is an indicator of the cultural, political, and social changes in the United States.
Reference:
The Encyclopedia of African-American Heritage
by Susan Altman
Copyright 1997, Facts on File, Inc. New York
ISBN 0-8160-3289-0
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
1000 West Columbus Avenue
Springfield, MA 01105
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
The schedule of how to develop strong legs part three
The schedule
how to develop strong legs
Part three:
The third series will be high load and long rest periods of two to four minutes between sets.
The exercises are squats, calf raises, and regular dead lifts with six to eight sets of four to five repetitions.
Repeat the three part schedule after a two session rest break. I guarantee you will have added size and strength to your quads, hamstrings and calves if you follow these suggestions.
how to develop strong legs
Part three:
The third series will be high load and long rest periods of two to four minutes between sets.
The exercises are squats, calf raises, and regular dead lifts with six to eight sets of four to five repetitions.
Repeat the three part schedule after a two session rest break. I guarantee you will have added size and strength to your quads, hamstrings and calves if you follow these suggestions.
The schedule of how to develop strong legs part three
The Schedule
how to develop strong legs
Part three:
The third series will be high load and long rest periods of two to four minutes between sets.
The exercises are squats, calf raises, and regular dead lifts with six to eight sets of four to five repetitions.
Repeat the three part schedule after a two session rest break. I guarantee you will have added size and strength to your quads, hamstrings and calves if you follow these suggestions.
how to develop strong legs
Part three:
The third series will be high load and long rest periods of two to four minutes between sets.
The exercises are squats, calf raises, and regular dead lifts with six to eight sets of four to five repetitions.
Repeat the three part schedule after a two session rest break. I guarantee you will have added size and strength to your quads, hamstrings and calves if you follow these suggestions.
The schedule of how to develop strong legs part two
The schedule
how to develop strong legs
Part two:
The next series is one of front squats, one legged calf raises, and good mornings with high repetitions and short rest periods. Do three to five sets of twenty on all squats, deadlifts and calves. Stay on this schedule for three to four weeks then rest again for two sessions. Continue to eat very well without piling on the fat tissue.
how to develop strong legs
Part two:
The next series is one of front squats, one legged calf raises, and good mornings with high repetitions and short rest periods. Do three to five sets of twenty on all squats, deadlifts and calves. Stay on this schedule for three to four weeks then rest again for two sessions. Continue to eat very well without piling on the fat tissue.
The schedule of how to develop strong legs part one
The schedule
how to develop strong legs
Part one:
After a warm up start with four sets of eight repetitions in the free weight squat, but don't make yourself sick while doing them. The puke factor is NOT in effect here. Go all the way down and all the way back up in your full range of motion. Don’t get into the habit of doing high squats. Do each one right; deep and deeper. Start with the bare bar if you have to but do them right each and every time. Rest between sets last long enough to catch your breath and get your pulse back to about 75% of your target heart rate.
Once you are able to do four sets of eight then on your last set do ten repetitions for two consecutive times. If you are able to do the extra two repetitions then add 10-20 more pounds of weight and repeat the four sets of eight repetitions again with the new weight the next time you lift.
Follow the squats with stiff legged dead lifts for four sets of twelve repetitions.
Now do your calves with high repetitions (12-20) for standing and low repetitions (8-10) for the seated ones with four sets of each version.
Do this for four to six weeks and then take a two session break.
how to develop strong legs
Part one:
After a warm up start with four sets of eight repetitions in the free weight squat, but don't make yourself sick while doing them. The puke factor is NOT in effect here. Go all the way down and all the way back up in your full range of motion. Don’t get into the habit of doing high squats. Do each one right; deep and deeper. Start with the bare bar if you have to but do them right each and every time. Rest between sets last long enough to catch your breath and get your pulse back to about 75% of your target heart rate.
Once you are able to do four sets of eight then on your last set do ten repetitions for two consecutive times. If you are able to do the extra two repetitions then add 10-20 more pounds of weight and repeat the four sets of eight repetitions again with the new weight the next time you lift.
Follow the squats with stiff legged dead lifts for four sets of twelve repetitions.
Now do your calves with high repetitions (12-20) for standing and low repetitions (8-10) for the seated ones with four sets of each version.
Do this for four to six weeks and then take a two session break.
How to develop your legs
How to develop your legs
That is a great question that is asked frequently. The short answer is this: You have got to start squatting with free weights and increasing your caloric intake to make those legs grow bigger. Get off the machines and under the bar.
Let me explain. Most people are able to do more on a machine because the balance factor is not in play on a machine. The machine holds the bar by keeping it in a certain predetermined groove and eliminates most, if not all, of the proprioceptive feedback, so learning the technique is non existent. The end result is decreased benefit to your targeted musculature.
Most people aren’t able to do as much weight on the bar as in the machine. Don't be worried about the load on the bar right now. Just lower the weight, get under the bar and start doing them technically perfect with the free weights.
Keep in mind that age, diet, genetics and gender will have a bearing on how big you can get. There are two ways to increase the size of your muscles: Sarcoplasmic and Myofibrillar, represented in the former by an increase in the sarcoplasm, the interfibrillar semi fluid and in the latter by an actual enlargement of the muscle fibers. Getting large but useful muscles will be dependent upon increasing the size of the fibers and not the fluids that go between each one. Read more strength tips...
Now on to a specific plan of attack:
Get your doctors approval before beginning a new exercise program.
Weigh yourself once a week on a specific day, just as soon as you get up in the morning and after having gone to the bathroom.
Buy a diary and begin writing everything down that you eat or drink and at what times
Keys to growth
Eat five to six balanced meals each day. Space these out at regular intervals of two to two and half hours apart. You have to increase your caloric intake to grow. Don't eat junk food or if you do at least keep it to a minimum. Stay well hydrated by drinking enough to keep your urine looking pale yellow.
Get good rest. Sleep is essential to growth.
Get off the machines and start doing free weight squats with the bar on your back. Find a good NSCA certified coach and learn how to do them correctly.
Exercise the legs three times a week with at least a days break in between each session. None of these should last more than 50-60 minutes. Just get in, lift and get out. Have sips of a sports drink or water before, during and immediately after your lifting times. Once completed and within the first thirty minutes begin to replenish the nutrients that have been used up to start the repair process going. During the first thirty minutes get protein and carbohydrates into your body (chocolate milk is nearly the perfect blend to drink at this time) Within the next two to three hours eat a well balanced meal with a bit more protein and carbohydrate mix to it.
That is a great question that is asked frequently. The short answer is this: You have got to start squatting with free weights and increasing your caloric intake to make those legs grow bigger. Get off the machines and under the bar.
Let me explain. Most people are able to do more on a machine because the balance factor is not in play on a machine. The machine holds the bar by keeping it in a certain predetermined groove and eliminates most, if not all, of the proprioceptive feedback, so learning the technique is non existent. The end result is decreased benefit to your targeted musculature.
Most people aren’t able to do as much weight on the bar as in the machine. Don't be worried about the load on the bar right now. Just lower the weight, get under the bar and start doing them technically perfect with the free weights.
Keep in mind that age, diet, genetics and gender will have a bearing on how big you can get. There are two ways to increase the size of your muscles: Sarcoplasmic and Myofibrillar, represented in the former by an increase in the sarcoplasm, the interfibrillar semi fluid and in the latter by an actual enlargement of the muscle fibers. Getting large but useful muscles will be dependent upon increasing the size of the fibers and not the fluids that go between each one. Read more strength tips...
Now on to a specific plan of attack:
Get your doctors approval before beginning a new exercise program.
Weigh yourself once a week on a specific day, just as soon as you get up in the morning and after having gone to the bathroom.
Buy a diary and begin writing everything down that you eat or drink and at what times
Keys to growth
Eat five to six balanced meals each day. Space these out at regular intervals of two to two and half hours apart. You have to increase your caloric intake to grow. Don't eat junk food or if you do at least keep it to a minimum. Stay well hydrated by drinking enough to keep your urine looking pale yellow.
Get good rest. Sleep is essential to growth.
Get off the machines and start doing free weight squats with the bar on your back. Find a good NSCA certified coach and learn how to do them correctly.
Exercise the legs three times a week with at least a days break in between each session. None of these should last more than 50-60 minutes. Just get in, lift and get out. Have sips of a sports drink or water before, during and immediately after your lifting times. Once completed and within the first thirty minutes begin to replenish the nutrients that have been used up to start the repair process going. During the first thirty minutes get protein and carbohydrates into your body (chocolate milk is nearly the perfect blend to drink at this time) Within the next two to three hours eat a well balanced meal with a bit more protein and carbohydrate mix to it.
Overtraining Part 2
In last week’s article, I offered the suggestion that as trainers and coaches, we must take a deeper look at how we program for and train our athletes. I have made a career out of advocating for the use of more moderate training intensity’s and volumes with young athletes, but this goes even further - it goes to the route of our programming abilities and skills. How much time do we truly spend in designing, monitoring and dynamically adjusting our training programs?
General overtraining syndromes impact both the central nervous system as well as the endocrine system. Given that the regulation of many hormones within the endocrine system serve to oversee and manage our stress levels, it is fair to imply that general overtraining could be considered a stress related issue.
Two types of general overtraining have been recognized -
1. Addisonic Overtraining - This version is related to Addison’s disease and involves a reduction in the activity of the adrenal glands. This class of overtraining impacts the parasympathetic portion of the autonomic nervous system, but shows no striking signs at first. A general stagnation or dip in an athlete’s performance (day-to-day) may be an indication or symptom.
2. Basedowic Overtraining - This version is connected to thyroid hyperactivity and named after Basedow’s disease (also known as Graves’ disease). This class of overtraining impacts the sympathetic portion of the autonomic nervous system and brings with it a host of identifiable symptoms (reduced reaction time, tire easily, poor motivation, appetite and sleep requirement changes).
I offer these two definitions in an attempt to encourage us all to take a closer look at our athletes when they walk in our doors. As I mentioned in last week’s article, over the past number of training sessions, I could see subtle signs of both these overtraining conditions in the actions and reactions of my athletes. The Winter Holiday (complete with inappropriate nutrition and sleep deprivation) had combined with Final Exams Week (complete with undue amounts of psychological stress, inappropriate nutrition and sleep deprivation) leaving many of my young athletes looking and feeling lethargic. That isn’t to say that notable extraneous circumstances alone (i.e. Winter Holiday coupled with Finals) will always account for a potential overtraining situation, in fact, very often it can be quite subtle -
- Broke up with girlfriend or boyfriend
- Received a ‘C’ in math
- Doesn’t understand English homework
- Is freaked out about driver’s test coming up in a few weeks
These all may seem like no big deal to you and I, but I again encourage you to think back to your high school days - some or all of these issues can be devastating to a teenager and feel insurmountable.
And these represent only psychological concerns... how about physical ones? -
- Baseball coach makes your athlete stay after school to lift with the team 3X/week
- Football player has to test 1RM on bench, squat and clean in a month - decides to go to the school gym everyday to train for it (and then comes to you later on that afternoon for your session)
- In gym class, your athlete had to run 2 miles for the schools’ standardized testing requirements (and then had to perform push-ups, sit-ups and rope climbing)
- The track and field coach makes your athlete go through a killer, vomit-filled workout full of running and sprinting because he wants his throwers to have a tough mentality
We all must look to generate close, special relationships with our athletes and be firm on the notion that the first thing we do when these kids walk into our training room is ask them how they are - take 5 minutes to learn about what’s going on in there lives today. How do they feel? How was school? How are classes? Learn to understand who each of your athletes are as people and allow this to help guide your programming.
That brings me to a particular point on programming I have long stood for -
Coaching is an art.
With all the periodization dogma and ‘scientific means’ of designing programs out there, the truly special interaction of application and relationship seems to be a dying art in our industry. I certainly believe very much in the science of what we do, but there is so much more to coaching than just understanding principals, exercise selections and executions.
As Mel Siff wrote in ‘Facts & Fallacies of Fitness’ -
“The organization of training is as much a matter of art,
trial-and-error and intuition as it is of science”
Aside from talking with your athletes and actively watching their abilities day-to-day, here are some ideas to put into your training programs and routines:
This article could have gone on forever about periodization dogmatic philosophy and the potential concerns of training athletes in only 6 - 8 week increments when a longer-term approach is so clearly warranted... I opted not to take it that way, but will say that in an effort to stay away from overtraining issues, as a practitioner, steer clear from selling your services to young athletes in short time frames. Understand that technical education alone can prolong a training routine beyond 6 weeks and that the expectations (either because they are assumed or because you are promoting them as such) are that this will be a high energy, butt-busting 6 weeks within which my vertical will increase 8" and my 40 will come down 2 tenths..............
Regularly plot technique days into your athletes’ training weeks. These by nature are low to moderate intensity/volume days and also serve to add to your athletes’ repertoire of lifting skills. I use a lot of Hybrid lifts in my training routines during various parts of the year (I will be discussing Hybrid lifts in a future article). In short, Hybrid lifts are two or more exercises strung together in a sequence. Some examples could include -
- High Pull/Hang Clean/Push-Press
- Shrug/Hang Clean/Front Squat
- RDL/High Pull/Full Clean/Push-Press/Overhead Lunge
Hybrids are great at increasing base levels of fitness and adding technical merit to an athletes’ lifts. In order to add to my Hybrids (or any other type of lift for that matter), once a week when my athletes come in, we will warm-up, learn a lift, practice it, cool-down and go home. To all you ‘intensity-crazed’ trainers out there, that sounds annoyingly easy I’m sure, but my athletes’ get to actually learn something, concentrate on important biomotor abilities aside from just strength or power development (I didn’t say that warm-up was easy), and keep there biological levels in check.
Here’s what a technique day may look like for me -
Warm-Up (15 minutes)
- Hip PNF (draw diagonal patterns across the sagittal midline of the body with accompanied hip internal/external rotations) - 3 sets, 10 reps/leg
- Hip Circuits (ROM movements performed in sequence while on all-fours) - 3 sets/leg, 8 reps/exercise
- Leg Raises (single-leg ROM activity while lying supine) - 3 sets/leg, 3 reps, hold each position for 5 seconds
- Prone Stability (elbows & toes, lifting 1 leg off the ground and holding for 2 - 3) - 3 sets, 8 reps/leg
Technique Development (15 minutes)
I will demonstrate one lift (likely using a whole-part-whole method). Each athlete will then take there time and attempt the lift themselves (bar is un-weighted and all other athletes in this group are actively watching the lift in order to provide constructive comments and/or learn visually)
Once the lift feels good for everyone, we will try it un-weighted within a Hybrid sequence. For example - today, I taught my athletes the staggered stance push-push. Once everyone tried it and began to fee comfortable, we add it to a sequence of exercises -
Hang Clean/Front Squat/Push-Press
Everyone will perform this once or twice until it feels comfortable
Training Time (15 minutes)
Now, we can use our new technique is a training sequence (keeping both the volume, intensity and load moderate).
Sequence (with 4 athletes) -
1. Hybrid Sequence - 1 set, 5 reps total
2. Stretch Piraformis (statically) - 30 seconds/leg
3. Posterior Reaches - 1 set, 15 reps
Athletes rotate through this sequence until everyone has gone through it 3 times.
We would then proceed to a cool-down.
So... we’ve had an hour training session that:
- Wasn’t high intensity
- Didn’t work hard at increasing a vertical jump
- Didn’t impact the athletes’ 40 time
But it was:
- Effective at not eliciting an overtraining response
- Taught a young athlete a new lift that now can be utilized whenever needed
- Worked to increase hip ROM and strength (which is HUGE)
You must as a coach inquire and keep records as to your athletes RPE during a workout - not so much during each rep, but certainly per session and perhaps per set. It is so much more than physical numbers that must be followed when constructing a training program. Correlate your athletes RPE responses to the time of day, portion of the week, part of the year - ascertain why at certain times they may be less ‘upbeat’ than others. This type of subjective reading is crucial in making the program as cohesive as possible for the athlete. Objective numbers just don’t tell the whole story and in fact, incorporating subjectivity into your analysis and dynamic adherence to a training program is often called Cybernetic Periodization.
Also record how skillfully exercises are performed. Although next week you are scheduled to reach for a max effort with your athletes, if you truly take a strong look at how well they are performing each exercise, you may opt to change or ratify your agenda. Create a rating of technique scale within which you record how well the exercise is being executed. This type of subject feedback is crucial in monitoring the effectiveness of a training protocol. Don’t make this scale terribly difficult to incorporate - design it as a scale ranging from 1 - 5 and define what each scores means so you have a working and practical measurement.
Brian Grasso is the Executive Director for the International Youth Conditioning Association (IYCA). The IYCA credentials professional Trainers and Coaches throughout the world as certified Youth Conditioning Specialists. Visit www.IYCA.org for more information.
General overtraining syndromes impact both the central nervous system as well as the endocrine system. Given that the regulation of many hormones within the endocrine system serve to oversee and manage our stress levels, it is fair to imply that general overtraining could be considered a stress related issue.
Two types of general overtraining have been recognized -
1. Addisonic Overtraining - This version is related to Addison’s disease and involves a reduction in the activity of the adrenal glands. This class of overtraining impacts the parasympathetic portion of the autonomic nervous system, but shows no striking signs at first. A general stagnation or dip in an athlete’s performance (day-to-day) may be an indication or symptom.
2. Basedowic Overtraining - This version is connected to thyroid hyperactivity and named after Basedow’s disease (also known as Graves’ disease). This class of overtraining impacts the sympathetic portion of the autonomic nervous system and brings with it a host of identifiable symptoms (reduced reaction time, tire easily, poor motivation, appetite and sleep requirement changes).
I offer these two definitions in an attempt to encourage us all to take a closer look at our athletes when they walk in our doors. As I mentioned in last week’s article, over the past number of training sessions, I could see subtle signs of both these overtraining conditions in the actions and reactions of my athletes. The Winter Holiday (complete with inappropriate nutrition and sleep deprivation) had combined with Final Exams Week (complete with undue amounts of psychological stress, inappropriate nutrition and sleep deprivation) leaving many of my young athletes looking and feeling lethargic. That isn’t to say that notable extraneous circumstances alone (i.e. Winter Holiday coupled with Finals) will always account for a potential overtraining situation, in fact, very often it can be quite subtle -
- Broke up with girlfriend or boyfriend
- Received a ‘C’ in math
- Doesn’t understand English homework
- Is freaked out about driver’s test coming up in a few weeks
These all may seem like no big deal to you and I, but I again encourage you to think back to your high school days - some or all of these issues can be devastating to a teenager and feel insurmountable.
And these represent only psychological concerns... how about physical ones? -
- Baseball coach makes your athlete stay after school to lift with the team 3X/week
- Football player has to test 1RM on bench, squat and clean in a month - decides to go to the school gym everyday to train for it (and then comes to you later on that afternoon for your session)
- In gym class, your athlete had to run 2 miles for the schools’ standardized testing requirements (and then had to perform push-ups, sit-ups and rope climbing)
- The track and field coach makes your athlete go through a killer, vomit-filled workout full of running and sprinting because he wants his throwers to have a tough mentality
We all must look to generate close, special relationships with our athletes and be firm on the notion that the first thing we do when these kids walk into our training room is ask them how they are - take 5 minutes to learn about what’s going on in there lives today. How do they feel? How was school? How are classes? Learn to understand who each of your athletes are as people and allow this to help guide your programming.
That brings me to a particular point on programming I have long stood for -
Coaching is an art.
With all the periodization dogma and ‘scientific means’ of designing programs out there, the truly special interaction of application and relationship seems to be a dying art in our industry. I certainly believe very much in the science of what we do, but there is so much more to coaching than just understanding principals, exercise selections and executions.
As Mel Siff wrote in ‘Facts & Fallacies of Fitness’ -
“The organization of training is as much a matter of art,
trial-and-error and intuition as it is of science”
Aside from talking with your athletes and actively watching their abilities day-to-day, here are some ideas to put into your training programs and routines:
This article could have gone on forever about periodization dogmatic philosophy and the potential concerns of training athletes in only 6 - 8 week increments when a longer-term approach is so clearly warranted... I opted not to take it that way, but will say that in an effort to stay away from overtraining issues, as a practitioner, steer clear from selling your services to young athletes in short time frames. Understand that technical education alone can prolong a training routine beyond 6 weeks and that the expectations (either because they are assumed or because you are promoting them as such) are that this will be a high energy, butt-busting 6 weeks within which my vertical will increase 8" and my 40 will come down 2 tenths..............
Regularly plot technique days into your athletes’ training weeks. These by nature are low to moderate intensity/volume days and also serve to add to your athletes’ repertoire of lifting skills. I use a lot of Hybrid lifts in my training routines during various parts of the year (I will be discussing Hybrid lifts in a future article). In short, Hybrid lifts are two or more exercises strung together in a sequence. Some examples could include -
- High Pull/Hang Clean/Push-Press
- Shrug/Hang Clean/Front Squat
- RDL/High Pull/Full Clean/Push-Press/Overhead Lunge
Hybrids are great at increasing base levels of fitness and adding technical merit to an athletes’ lifts. In order to add to my Hybrids (or any other type of lift for that matter), once a week when my athletes come in, we will warm-up, learn a lift, practice it, cool-down and go home. To all you ‘intensity-crazed’ trainers out there, that sounds annoyingly easy I’m sure, but my athletes’ get to actually learn something, concentrate on important biomotor abilities aside from just strength or power development (I didn’t say that warm-up was easy), and keep there biological levels in check.
Here’s what a technique day may look like for me -
Warm-Up (15 minutes)
- Hip PNF (draw diagonal patterns across the sagittal midline of the body with accompanied hip internal/external rotations) - 3 sets, 10 reps/leg
- Hip Circuits (ROM movements performed in sequence while on all-fours) - 3 sets/leg, 8 reps/exercise
- Leg Raises (single-leg ROM activity while lying supine) - 3 sets/leg, 3 reps, hold each position for 5 seconds
- Prone Stability (elbows & toes, lifting 1 leg off the ground and holding for 2 - 3) - 3 sets, 8 reps/leg
Technique Development (15 minutes)
I will demonstrate one lift (likely using a whole-part-whole method). Each athlete will then take there time and attempt the lift themselves (bar is un-weighted and all other athletes in this group are actively watching the lift in order to provide constructive comments and/or learn visually)
Once the lift feels good for everyone, we will try it un-weighted within a Hybrid sequence. For example - today, I taught my athletes the staggered stance push-push. Once everyone tried it and began to fee comfortable, we add it to a sequence of exercises -
Hang Clean/Front Squat/Push-Press
Everyone will perform this once or twice until it feels comfortable
Training Time (15 minutes)
Now, we can use our new technique is a training sequence (keeping both the volume, intensity and load moderate).
Sequence (with 4 athletes) -
1. Hybrid Sequence - 1 set, 5 reps total
2. Stretch Piraformis (statically) - 30 seconds/leg
3. Posterior Reaches - 1 set, 15 reps
Athletes rotate through this sequence until everyone has gone through it 3 times.
We would then proceed to a cool-down.
So... we’ve had an hour training session that:
- Wasn’t high intensity
- Didn’t work hard at increasing a vertical jump
- Didn’t impact the athletes’ 40 time
But it was:
- Effective at not eliciting an overtraining response
- Taught a young athlete a new lift that now can be utilized whenever needed
- Worked to increase hip ROM and strength (which is HUGE)
You must as a coach inquire and keep records as to your athletes RPE during a workout - not so much during each rep, but certainly per session and perhaps per set. It is so much more than physical numbers that must be followed when constructing a training program. Correlate your athletes RPE responses to the time of day, portion of the week, part of the year - ascertain why at certain times they may be less ‘upbeat’ than others. This type of subjective reading is crucial in making the program as cohesive as possible for the athlete. Objective numbers just don’t tell the whole story and in fact, incorporating subjectivity into your analysis and dynamic adherence to a training program is often called Cybernetic Periodization.
Also record how skillfully exercises are performed. Although next week you are scheduled to reach for a max effort with your athletes, if you truly take a strong look at how well they are performing each exercise, you may opt to change or ratify your agenda. Create a rating of technique scale within which you record how well the exercise is being executed. This type of subject feedback is crucial in monitoring the effectiveness of a training protocol. Don’t make this scale terribly difficult to incorporate - design it as a scale ranging from 1 - 5 and define what each scores means so you have a working and practical measurement.
Brian Grasso is the Executive Director for the International Youth Conditioning Association (IYCA). The IYCA credentials professional Trainers and Coaches throughout the world as certified Youth Conditioning Specialists. Visit www.IYCA.org for more information.
Overtraining Part 2
In last week’s article, I offered the suggestion that as trainers and coaches, we must take a deeper look at how we program for and train our athletes. I have made a career out of advocating for the use of more moderate training intensity’s and volumes with young athletes, but this goes even further - it goes to the route of our programming abilities and skills. How much time do we truly spend in designing, monitoring and dynamically adjusting our training programs?
General overtraining syndromes impact both the central nervous system as well as the endocrine system. Given that the regulation of many hormones within the endocrine system serve to oversee and manage our stress levels, it is fair to imply that general overtraining could be considered a stress related issue.
Two types of general overtraining have been recognized -
1. Addisonic Overtraining - This version is related to Addison’s disease and involves a reduction in the activity of the adrenal glands. This class of overtraining impacts the parasympathetic portion of the autonomic nervous system, but shows no striking signs at first. A general stagnation or dip in an athlete’s performance (day-to-day) may be an indication or symptom.
2. Basedowic Overtraining - This version is connected to thyroid hyperactivity and named after Basedow’s disease (also known as Graves’ disease). This class of overtraining impacts the sympathetic portion of the autonomic nervous system and brings with it a host of identifiable symptoms (reduced reaction time, tire easily, poor motivation, appetite and sleep requirement changes).
I offer these two definitions in an attempt to encourage us all to take a closer look at our athletes when they walk in our doors. As I mentioned in last week’s article, over the past number of training sessions, I could see subtle signs of both these overtraining conditions in the actions and reactions of my athletes. The Winter Holiday (complete with inappropriate nutrition and sleep deprivation) had combined with Final Exams Week (complete with undue amounts of psychological stress, inappropriate nutrition and sleep deprivation) leaving many of my young athletes looking and feeling lethargic. That isn’t to say that notable extraneous circumstances alone (i.e. Winter Holiday coupled with Finals) will always account for a potential overtraining situation, in fact, very often it can be quite subtle -
- Broke up with girlfriend or boyfriend
- Received a ‘C’ in math
- Doesn’t understand English homework
- Is freaked out about driver’s test coming up in a few weeks
These all may seem like no big deal to you and I, but I again encourage you to think back to your high school days - some or all of these issues can be devastating to a teenager and feel insurmountable.
And these represent only psychological concerns... how about physical ones? -
- Baseball coach makes your athlete stay after school to lift with the team 3X/week
- Football player has to test 1RM on bench, squat and clean in a month - decides to go to the school gym everyday to train for it (and then comes to you later on that afternoon for your session)
- In gym class, your athlete had to run 2 miles for the schools’ standardized testing requirements (and then had to perform push-ups, sit-ups and rope climbing)
- The track and field coach makes your athlete go through a killer, vomit-filled workout full of running and sprinting because he wants his throwers to have a tough mentality
We all must look to generate close, special relationships with our athletes and be firm on the notion that the first thing we do when these kids walk into our training room is ask them how they are - take 5 minutes to learn about what’s going on in there lives today. How do they feel? How was school? How are classes? Learn to understand who each of your athletes are as people and allow this to help guide your programming.
That brings me to a particular point on programming I have long stood for -
Coaching is an art.
With all the periodization dogma and ‘scientific means’ of designing programs out there, the truly special interaction of application and relationship seems to be a dying art in our industry. I certainly believe very much in the science of what we do, but there is so much more to coaching than just understanding principals, exercise selections and executions.
As Mel Siff wrote in ‘Facts & Fallacies of Fitness’ -
“The organization of training is as much a matter of art,
trial-and-error and intuition as it is of science”
Aside from talking with your athletes and actively watching their abilities day-to-day, here are some ideas to put into your training programs and routines:
This article could have gone on forever about periodization dogmatic philosophy and the potential concerns of training athletes in only 6 - 8 week increments when a longer-term approach is so clearly warranted... I opted not to take it that way, but will say that in an effort to stay away from overtraining issues, as a practitioner, steer clear from selling your services to young athletes in short time frames. Understand that technical education alone can prolong a training routine beyond 6 weeks and that the expectations (either because they are assumed or because you are promoting them as such) are that this will be a high energy, butt-busting 6 weeks within which my vertical will increase 8" and my 40 will come down 2 tenths..............
Regularly plot technique days into your athletes’ training weeks. These by nature are low to moderate intensity/volume days and also serve to add to your athletes’ repertoire of lifting skills. I use a lot of Hybrid lifts in my training routines during various parts of the year (I will be discussing Hybrid lifts in a future article). In short, Hybrid lifts are two or more exercises strung together in a sequence. Some examples could include -
- High Pull/Hang Clean/Push-Press
- Shrug/Hang Clean/Front Squat
- RDL/High Pull/Full Clean/Push-Press/Overhead Lunge
Hybrids are great at increasing base levels of fitness and adding technical merit to an athletes’ lifts. In order to add to my Hybrids (or any other type of lift for that matter), once a week when my athletes come in, we will warm-up, learn a lift, practice it, cool-down and go home. To all you ‘intensity-crazed’ trainers out there, that sounds annoyingly easy I’m sure, but my athletes’ get to actually learn something, concentrate on important biomotor abilities aside from just strength or power development (I didn’t say that warm-up was easy), and keep there biological levels in check.
Here’s what a technique day may look like for me -
Warm-Up (15 minutes)
- Hip PNF (draw diagonal patterns across the sagittal midline of the body with accompanied hip internal/external rotations) - 3 sets, 10 reps/leg
- Hip Circuits (ROM movements performed in sequence while on all-fours) - 3 sets/leg, 8 reps/exercise
- Leg Raises (single-leg ROM activity while lying supine) - 3 sets/leg, 3 reps, hold each position for 5 seconds
- Prone Stability (elbows & toes, lifting 1 leg off the ground and holding for 2 - 3) - 3 sets, 8 reps/leg
Technique Development (15 minutes)
I will demonstrate one lift (likely using a whole-part-whole method). Each athlete will then take there time and attempt the lift themselves (bar is un-weighted and all other athletes in this group are actively watching the lift in order to provide constructive comments and/or learn visually)
Once the lift feels good for everyone, we will try it un-weighted within a Hybrid sequence. For example - today, I taught my athletes the staggered stance push-push. Once everyone tried it and began to fee comfortable, we add it to a sequence of exercises -
Hang Clean/Front Squat/Push-Press
Everyone will perform this once or twice until it feels comfortable
Training Time (15 minutes)
Now, we can use our new technique is a training sequence (keeping both the volume, intensity and load moderate).
Sequence (with 4 athletes) -
1. Hybrid Sequence - 1 set, 5 reps total
2. Stretch Piraformis (statically) - 30 seconds/leg
3. Posterior Reaches - 1 set, 15 reps
Athletes rotate through this sequence until everyone has gone through it 3 times.
We would then proceed to a cool-down.
So... we’ve had an hour training session that:
- Wasn’t high intensity
- Didn’t work hard at increasing a vertical jump
- Didn’t impact the athletes’ 40 time
But it was:
- Effective at not eliciting an overtraining response
- Taught a young athlete a new lift that now can be utilized whenever needed
- Worked to increase hip ROM and strength (which is HUGE)
You must as a coach inquire and keep records as to your athletes RPE during a workout - not so much during each rep, but certainly per session and perhaps per set. It is so much more than physical numbers that must be followed when constructing a training program. Correlate your athletes RPE responses to the time of day, portion of the week, part of the year - ascertain why at certain times they may be less ‘upbeat’ than others. This type of subjective reading is crucial in making the program as cohesive as possible for the athlete. Objective numbers just don’t tell the whole story and in fact, incorporating subjectivity into your analysis and dynamic adherence to a training program is often called Cybernetic Periodization.
Also record how skillfully exercises are performed. Although next week you are scheduled to reach for a max effort with your athletes, if you truly take a strong look at how well they are performing each exercise, you may opt to change or ratify your agenda. Create a rating of technique scale within which you record how well the exercise is being executed. This type of subject feedback is crucial in monitoring the effectiveness of a training protocol. Don’t make this scale terribly difficult to incorporate - design it as a scale ranging from 1 - 5 and define what each scores means so you have a working and practical measurement.
Brian Grasso is the Executive Director for the International Youth Conditioning Association (IYCA). The IYCA credentials professional Trainers and Coaches throughout the world as certified Youth Conditioning Specialists. Visit www.IYCA.org for more information.
General overtraining syndromes impact both the central nervous system as well as the endocrine system. Given that the regulation of many hormones within the endocrine system serve to oversee and manage our stress levels, it is fair to imply that general overtraining could be considered a stress related issue.
Two types of general overtraining have been recognized -
1. Addisonic Overtraining - This version is related to Addison’s disease and involves a reduction in the activity of the adrenal glands. This class of overtraining impacts the parasympathetic portion of the autonomic nervous system, but shows no striking signs at first. A general stagnation or dip in an athlete’s performance (day-to-day) may be an indication or symptom.
2. Basedowic Overtraining - This version is connected to thyroid hyperactivity and named after Basedow’s disease (also known as Graves’ disease). This class of overtraining impacts the sympathetic portion of the autonomic nervous system and brings with it a host of identifiable symptoms (reduced reaction time, tire easily, poor motivation, appetite and sleep requirement changes).
I offer these two definitions in an attempt to encourage us all to take a closer look at our athletes when they walk in our doors. As I mentioned in last week’s article, over the past number of training sessions, I could see subtle signs of both these overtraining conditions in the actions and reactions of my athletes. The Winter Holiday (complete with inappropriate nutrition and sleep deprivation) had combined with Final Exams Week (complete with undue amounts of psychological stress, inappropriate nutrition and sleep deprivation) leaving many of my young athletes looking and feeling lethargic. That isn’t to say that notable extraneous circumstances alone (i.e. Winter Holiday coupled with Finals) will always account for a potential overtraining situation, in fact, very often it can be quite subtle -
- Broke up with girlfriend or boyfriend
- Received a ‘C’ in math
- Doesn’t understand English homework
- Is freaked out about driver’s test coming up in a few weeks
These all may seem like no big deal to you and I, but I again encourage you to think back to your high school days - some or all of these issues can be devastating to a teenager and feel insurmountable.
And these represent only psychological concerns... how about physical ones? -
- Baseball coach makes your athlete stay after school to lift with the team 3X/week
- Football player has to test 1RM on bench, squat and clean in a month - decides to go to the school gym everyday to train for it (and then comes to you later on that afternoon for your session)
- In gym class, your athlete had to run 2 miles for the schools’ standardized testing requirements (and then had to perform push-ups, sit-ups and rope climbing)
- The track and field coach makes your athlete go through a killer, vomit-filled workout full of running and sprinting because he wants his throwers to have a tough mentality
We all must look to generate close, special relationships with our athletes and be firm on the notion that the first thing we do when these kids walk into our training room is ask them how they are - take 5 minutes to learn about what’s going on in there lives today. How do they feel? How was school? How are classes? Learn to understand who each of your athletes are as people and allow this to help guide your programming.
That brings me to a particular point on programming I have long stood for -
Coaching is an art.
With all the periodization dogma and ‘scientific means’ of designing programs out there, the truly special interaction of application and relationship seems to be a dying art in our industry. I certainly believe very much in the science of what we do, but there is so much more to coaching than just understanding principals, exercise selections and executions.
As Mel Siff wrote in ‘Facts & Fallacies of Fitness’ -
“The organization of training is as much a matter of art,
trial-and-error and intuition as it is of science”
Aside from talking with your athletes and actively watching their abilities day-to-day, here are some ideas to put into your training programs and routines:
This article could have gone on forever about periodization dogmatic philosophy and the potential concerns of training athletes in only 6 - 8 week increments when a longer-term approach is so clearly warranted... I opted not to take it that way, but will say that in an effort to stay away from overtraining issues, as a practitioner, steer clear from selling your services to young athletes in short time frames. Understand that technical education alone can prolong a training routine beyond 6 weeks and that the expectations (either because they are assumed or because you are promoting them as such) are that this will be a high energy, butt-busting 6 weeks within which my vertical will increase 8" and my 40 will come down 2 tenths..............
Regularly plot technique days into your athletes’ training weeks. These by nature are low to moderate intensity/volume days and also serve to add to your athletes’ repertoire of lifting skills. I use a lot of Hybrid lifts in my training routines during various parts of the year (I will be discussing Hybrid lifts in a future article). In short, Hybrid lifts are two or more exercises strung together in a sequence. Some examples could include -
- High Pull/Hang Clean/Push-Press
- Shrug/Hang Clean/Front Squat
- RDL/High Pull/Full Clean/Push-Press/Overhead Lunge
Hybrids are great at increasing base levels of fitness and adding technical merit to an athletes’ lifts. In order to add to my Hybrids (or any other type of lift for that matter), once a week when my athletes come in, we will warm-up, learn a lift, practice it, cool-down and go home. To all you ‘intensity-crazed’ trainers out there, that sounds annoyingly easy I’m sure, but my athletes’ get to actually learn something, concentrate on important biomotor abilities aside from just strength or power development (I didn’t say that warm-up was easy), and keep there biological levels in check.
Here’s what a technique day may look like for me -
Warm-Up (15 minutes)
- Hip PNF (draw diagonal patterns across the sagittal midline of the body with accompanied hip internal/external rotations) - 3 sets, 10 reps/leg
- Hip Circuits (ROM movements performed in sequence while on all-fours) - 3 sets/leg, 8 reps/exercise
- Leg Raises (single-leg ROM activity while lying supine) - 3 sets/leg, 3 reps, hold each position for 5 seconds
- Prone Stability (elbows & toes, lifting 1 leg off the ground and holding for 2 - 3) - 3 sets, 8 reps/leg
Technique Development (15 minutes)
I will demonstrate one lift (likely using a whole-part-whole method). Each athlete will then take there time and attempt the lift themselves (bar is un-weighted and all other athletes in this group are actively watching the lift in order to provide constructive comments and/or learn visually)
Once the lift feels good for everyone, we will try it un-weighted within a Hybrid sequence. For example - today, I taught my athletes the staggered stance push-push. Once everyone tried it and began to fee comfortable, we add it to a sequence of exercises -
Hang Clean/Front Squat/Push-Press
Everyone will perform this once or twice until it feels comfortable
Training Time (15 minutes)
Now, we can use our new technique is a training sequence (keeping both the volume, intensity and load moderate).
Sequence (with 4 athletes) -
1. Hybrid Sequence - 1 set, 5 reps total
2. Stretch Piraformis (statically) - 30 seconds/leg
3. Posterior Reaches - 1 set, 15 reps
Athletes rotate through this sequence until everyone has gone through it 3 times.
We would then proceed to a cool-down.
So... we’ve had an hour training session that:
- Wasn’t high intensity
- Didn’t work hard at increasing a vertical jump
- Didn’t impact the athletes’ 40 time
But it was:
- Effective at not eliciting an overtraining response
- Taught a young athlete a new lift that now can be utilized whenever needed
- Worked to increase hip ROM and strength (which is HUGE)
You must as a coach inquire and keep records as to your athletes RPE during a workout - not so much during each rep, but certainly per session and perhaps per set. It is so much more than physical numbers that must be followed when constructing a training program. Correlate your athletes RPE responses to the time of day, portion of the week, part of the year - ascertain why at certain times they may be less ‘upbeat’ than others. This type of subjective reading is crucial in making the program as cohesive as possible for the athlete. Objective numbers just don’t tell the whole story and in fact, incorporating subjectivity into your analysis and dynamic adherence to a training program is often called Cybernetic Periodization.
Also record how skillfully exercises are performed. Although next week you are scheduled to reach for a max effort with your athletes, if you truly take a strong look at how well they are performing each exercise, you may opt to change or ratify your agenda. Create a rating of technique scale within which you record how well the exercise is being executed. This type of subject feedback is crucial in monitoring the effectiveness of a training protocol. Don’t make this scale terribly difficult to incorporate - design it as a scale ranging from 1 - 5 and define what each scores means so you have a working and practical measurement.
Brian Grasso is the Executive Director for the International Youth Conditioning Association (IYCA). The IYCA credentials professional Trainers and Coaches throughout the world as certified Youth Conditioning Specialists. Visit www.IYCA.org for more information.
Overtraining Part 1
I have long supported the notion that the zeal many Trainers and Coaches show with respect to conducting high intensity training sessions with young athletes is akin to the unsure actor who feels a need to ‘over-do’ his or her role in a given appearance for fear that the audience may disapprove of his acting ability.
Almost like a ‘they paid for it and now I must deliver it’ mind set.
As a Coach, you sometimes feel as though you must have your athletes walk away from a training session dripping with sweat and barely able to open their car doors. After all, if they don’t feel as though you are ‘training them hard enough’, they may opt to go and seek the services of a different Coach.
The problem is that overtraining syndromes are not hard to develop with adolescent athletes and must be recognized as an issue with respect to programming.
For ease of explanation sake, let’s just say that if your athlete walks into your training center at what would constitute a normal biological level, and if your training stimulus was at an intensity that would enable the athlete to dip below this normal biological level, but not be too much so as to not be able to ascend into a level of supercompensation, then, well... that would be good.
But there are energy’s in the world that effect an athletes recoverability from a training session (you know... recovery... that’s the part of the training routine during which your athlete’s body actually makes improvements and gains).
For example:
- Nutrition
- Emotional Stress
- Sleep
Let’s examine those individually for a second.
Nutrition
I communicate with my athletes daily as to what they should be eating and when. The problem is that they are teenagers who don’t always listen to everything as much as they should! Also, they are not solely responsible for this particular issue in their lives. Mom or Dad have a strong say in what the food selections are in a given week (‘cause they are the ones who typically pay for the groceries). More over, my teenage athletes don’t often cook dinner for themselves and very often have to deal with hectic class schedules and sometimes teachers who restrict snacks in class, both of which serve to make eating meals at regular intervals difficult.
I am not embarrassed to say that even though I have very open lines of communication regarding nutrition and other issues, I too have athletes walk into my facility who haven’t eaten anything for 5 hours. Maybe not the time for a ‘ass-kicker’ of a work out??!!
Emotional Stress
I have brought this point up far too many times and had adults tell me something to the effect of ‘kids don’t have stress... wait until they’re out in the real world’. That is shear garbage. First off, think back to when you were in high school. Assuming you took your academic life seriously, how stressful did you find tests, exams, term papers?? I know I felt a great deal of stress in my adolescent years due to school pressure (you wouldn’t know that to look at my high school report card, but I digress...). Add to that dealing with boyfriends and girlfriends... you know the one... she was the one you were going to marry, remember? Dare I say, the adolescent years are chalked full of emotional tugs-of-war that are exasperated by two relatively forgotten points -
A. Kids are kids. They don’t have a ton of life experience so the stress they are facing is the severest that they know. You can look at your life and think high school was a breeze compared to what you’re going through now, but teenagers don’t have this reflective capability... their frame of reference is restricted to their experiences.
B. Teenagers, in most cases, have not yet developed certain life coping skills that see them through particular issues. As an adult, I can talk with my young athletes about their problems and offer solutions that they couldn’t see because my coping skills are more advanced than theirs. Need-less-to-say, emotional stress is a very real concern in the life of a teenager and can dramatically effect their ability to recover post workout.
Sleep
The two best examples I can give with respect to sleep (or more appropriately, sleep depravation), happened with a few of my athletes over the past couple of weeks.
A. Over the Winter Holiday recently, I noticed many of my teenage athletes coming into my facility for a 2:00pm workout looking absolutely exhausted. Upon probing them for information as to why, their response was that they had just woken up. Because of the Holidays, they were staying up until 4:00am and not waking until 1:00pm. Forecast three weeks later, now these very same athletes are still looking exhausted because once school started again, they couldn’t seem to re-regulate their bodies to going to bed at a reasonable time and waking up at 6:00am.
B. Connect that example to the fact that Finals have just concluded in the school district nearest my training facility. Like many students, many of my athletes spend hours studying - very often at the expense of sleep.
The reality is that I council my athletes daily as to nutritional habits, sleeping patterns and stress reduction, but they are still teenagers and in many cases are going to do what they want. The one leverage I have however, is their training routine. I control the strings on intensity!!
This is an important issue to reflect on however. How many young athletes in our culture are over stressed, over tired and nutritionally deficient?
Now, how many Trainers and Coaches could care less and still program nothing but intense-filled training sessions.
Brian Grasso is the Executive Director for the International Youth Conditioning Association (IYCA). The IYCA credentials professional Trainers and Coaches throughout the world as certified Youth Conditioning Specialists. Visit www.IYCA.org for more information.
Almost like a ‘they paid for it and now I must deliver it’ mind set.
As a Coach, you sometimes feel as though you must have your athletes walk away from a training session dripping with sweat and barely able to open their car doors. After all, if they don’t feel as though you are ‘training them hard enough’, they may opt to go and seek the services of a different Coach.
The problem is that overtraining syndromes are not hard to develop with adolescent athletes and must be recognized as an issue with respect to programming.
For ease of explanation sake, let’s just say that if your athlete walks into your training center at what would constitute a normal biological level, and if your training stimulus was at an intensity that would enable the athlete to dip below this normal biological level, but not be too much so as to not be able to ascend into a level of supercompensation, then, well... that would be good.
But there are energy’s in the world that effect an athletes recoverability from a training session (you know... recovery... that’s the part of the training routine during which your athlete’s body actually makes improvements and gains).
For example:
- Nutrition
- Emotional Stress
- Sleep
Let’s examine those individually for a second.
Nutrition
I communicate with my athletes daily as to what they should be eating and when. The problem is that they are teenagers who don’t always listen to everything as much as they should! Also, they are not solely responsible for this particular issue in their lives. Mom or Dad have a strong say in what the food selections are in a given week (‘cause they are the ones who typically pay for the groceries). More over, my teenage athletes don’t often cook dinner for themselves and very often have to deal with hectic class schedules and sometimes teachers who restrict snacks in class, both of which serve to make eating meals at regular intervals difficult.
I am not embarrassed to say that even though I have very open lines of communication regarding nutrition and other issues, I too have athletes walk into my facility who haven’t eaten anything for 5 hours. Maybe not the time for a ‘ass-kicker’ of a work out??!!
Emotional Stress
I have brought this point up far too many times and had adults tell me something to the effect of ‘kids don’t have stress... wait until they’re out in the real world’. That is shear garbage. First off, think back to when you were in high school. Assuming you took your academic life seriously, how stressful did you find tests, exams, term papers?? I know I felt a great deal of stress in my adolescent years due to school pressure (you wouldn’t know that to look at my high school report card, but I digress...). Add to that dealing with boyfriends and girlfriends... you know the one... she was the one you were going to marry, remember? Dare I say, the adolescent years are chalked full of emotional tugs-of-war that are exasperated by two relatively forgotten points -
A. Kids are kids. They don’t have a ton of life experience so the stress they are facing is the severest that they know. You can look at your life and think high school was a breeze compared to what you’re going through now, but teenagers don’t have this reflective capability... their frame of reference is restricted to their experiences.
B. Teenagers, in most cases, have not yet developed certain life coping skills that see them through particular issues. As an adult, I can talk with my young athletes about their problems and offer solutions that they couldn’t see because my coping skills are more advanced than theirs. Need-less-to-say, emotional stress is a very real concern in the life of a teenager and can dramatically effect their ability to recover post workout.
Sleep
The two best examples I can give with respect to sleep (or more appropriately, sleep depravation), happened with a few of my athletes over the past couple of weeks.
A. Over the Winter Holiday recently, I noticed many of my teenage athletes coming into my facility for a 2:00pm workout looking absolutely exhausted. Upon probing them for information as to why, their response was that they had just woken up. Because of the Holidays, they were staying up until 4:00am and not waking until 1:00pm. Forecast three weeks later, now these very same athletes are still looking exhausted because once school started again, they couldn’t seem to re-regulate their bodies to going to bed at a reasonable time and waking up at 6:00am.
B. Connect that example to the fact that Finals have just concluded in the school district nearest my training facility. Like many students, many of my athletes spend hours studying - very often at the expense of sleep.
The reality is that I council my athletes daily as to nutritional habits, sleeping patterns and stress reduction, but they are still teenagers and in many cases are going to do what they want. The one leverage I have however, is their training routine. I control the strings on intensity!!
This is an important issue to reflect on however. How many young athletes in our culture are over stressed, over tired and nutritionally deficient?
Now, how many Trainers and Coaches could care less and still program nothing but intense-filled training sessions.
Brian Grasso is the Executive Director for the International Youth Conditioning Association (IYCA). The IYCA credentials professional Trainers and Coaches throughout the world as certified Youth Conditioning Specialists. Visit www.IYCA.org for more information.
Teaching Basics
Teaching Basics
By - Brian J. Grasso
In the initial phases of training with a young athlete (technically referred to as General Preparatory or GPP), the undeniable key and focus (outside of fun!) should be aptitude development. This aptitude should transcend to both movement-based skills in their basic elements (balance, jumping, throwing, linear and lateral motion progressions etc) as well as strength-based exercises. I have always firmly believed that basic squatting techniques, for example (along with squatting variations and unilateral efforts), should be introduced into the training sessions of young athletes.
That being said, how does one begin the process of teaching movement habits.
When working with truly young athletes (6 - 7 years old), one needs to adopt a progression template within which to work. No template can ever be applied to 100% of your athletes 100% of the time - that is the beauty of coaching; understanding what to apply, when and for how long (i.e. knowing when to progress or regress on an individual basis). Trust me when I say that no system is foolproof and that any strength coach or trainer that claims to ‘have all the answers’ is completely full of crap. For that exact reason, one of my industry hero’s is Mike Boyle.
He is a) straight to the point with no fluff and b) bold in his assertion that he is still developing and evolving as a coach himself.
After 10 years of working with young athletes, I have reached one undeniable conclusion - the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know and the more I want to change my methodologies.
Having said that, these are the first three progressions I use in teaching a movement habit -
Skill: Lateral Deceleration
Firstly, break key points down into skill sets that are easy to remember so that kids can recite them both to you and to themselves (this makes teaching and cuing much simpler). I have four points I want my athletes to learn/know/commit to memory with respect to lateral deceleration:
Bend your knees and drop your hips
Be on a flat foot or slightly on the ball of the foot
The toe/foot of the decelerating leg should be square to the angle of the body (i.e. not out)
The foot placement should be outside the box (the ‘box’ is a reference to an invisible line drawn from the shoulder to the floor. Any placement outside of that line is good; within or too close to the line will result in a poor deceleration and potential injury).
Have kids understand each of these items individually and then in conjunction with each other.
Progressions:
These represent the first three of my progressive steps:
I. Repeat Statically - have the athletes assume an athletic position or stance. From here, they will ‘hit’ the decelerating position upon command. Be patient with this step and make sure all your athletes are comfortable and competent with the motion. Add fun to this by calling out different legs unpredictably.
II. Repeat Dynamically - when you feel your athletes are ready, have them perform one or two moderately paced side shuffles prior to ‘hitting’ the decelerating position. The side shuffles should be slow and easy. At this point, you will begin to ascertain if further teaching is necessary (it likely will be). With the additional movement prior to the deceleration, a common mistake you will see is athletes not planting their foot outside of the box far enough. This results in a poor alignment and a less than satisfactory deceleration (even at these slow speeds). My colleague, Lee Taft, calls this a shoulder sway (because the shoulders lean towards the decelerating leg rather than sitting back in a ‘braking’ type position). I love this term and reflects what the actual concern looks like.
III. Repeat Randomly - Now that the athletes are comfortable with the motion, create games and situations within which they react to a particular signal and move (unpredictably) different directions. On your ‘point’ for example, the athlete will take one or two moderately paced side shuffles and then ‘hit’ a deceleration. Have them hold the position so that both you and them can ascertain what is right and wrong with their posture.
Brian Grasso is the Executive Director for the International Youth Conditioning Association (IYCA). The IYCA credentials professional Trainers and Coaches throughout the world as certified Youth Conditioning Specialists. Visit www.IYCA.org for more information.
By - Brian J. Grasso
In the initial phases of training with a young athlete (technically referred to as General Preparatory or GPP), the undeniable key and focus (outside of fun!) should be aptitude development. This aptitude should transcend to both movement-based skills in their basic elements (balance, jumping, throwing, linear and lateral motion progressions etc) as well as strength-based exercises. I have always firmly believed that basic squatting techniques, for example (along with squatting variations and unilateral efforts), should be introduced into the training sessions of young athletes.
That being said, how does one begin the process of teaching movement habits.
When working with truly young athletes (6 - 7 years old), one needs to adopt a progression template within which to work. No template can ever be applied to 100% of your athletes 100% of the time - that is the beauty of coaching; understanding what to apply, when and for how long (i.e. knowing when to progress or regress on an individual basis). Trust me when I say that no system is foolproof and that any strength coach or trainer that claims to ‘have all the answers’ is completely full of crap. For that exact reason, one of my industry hero’s is Mike Boyle.
He is a) straight to the point with no fluff and b) bold in his assertion that he is still developing and evolving as a coach himself.
After 10 years of working with young athletes, I have reached one undeniable conclusion - the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know and the more I want to change my methodologies.
Having said that, these are the first three progressions I use in teaching a movement habit -
Skill: Lateral Deceleration
Firstly, break key points down into skill sets that are easy to remember so that kids can recite them both to you and to themselves (this makes teaching and cuing much simpler). I have four points I want my athletes to learn/know/commit to memory with respect to lateral deceleration:
Bend your knees and drop your hips
Be on a flat foot or slightly on the ball of the foot
The toe/foot of the decelerating leg should be square to the angle of the body (i.e. not out)
The foot placement should be outside the box (the ‘box’ is a reference to an invisible line drawn from the shoulder to the floor. Any placement outside of that line is good; within or too close to the line will result in a poor deceleration and potential injury).
Have kids understand each of these items individually and then in conjunction with each other.
Progressions:
These represent the first three of my progressive steps:
I. Repeat Statically - have the athletes assume an athletic position or stance. From here, they will ‘hit’ the decelerating position upon command. Be patient with this step and make sure all your athletes are comfortable and competent with the motion. Add fun to this by calling out different legs unpredictably.
II. Repeat Dynamically - when you feel your athletes are ready, have them perform one or two moderately paced side shuffles prior to ‘hitting’ the decelerating position. The side shuffles should be slow and easy. At this point, you will begin to ascertain if further teaching is necessary (it likely will be). With the additional movement prior to the deceleration, a common mistake you will see is athletes not planting their foot outside of the box far enough. This results in a poor alignment and a less than satisfactory deceleration (even at these slow speeds). My colleague, Lee Taft, calls this a shoulder sway (because the shoulders lean towards the decelerating leg rather than sitting back in a ‘braking’ type position). I love this term and reflects what the actual concern looks like.
III. Repeat Randomly - Now that the athletes are comfortable with the motion, create games and situations within which they react to a particular signal and move (unpredictably) different directions. On your ‘point’ for example, the athlete will take one or two moderately paced side shuffles and then ‘hit’ a deceleration. Have them hold the position so that both you and them can ascertain what is right and wrong with their posture.
Brian Grasso is the Executive Director for the International Youth Conditioning Association (IYCA). The IYCA credentials professional Trainers and Coaches throughout the world as certified Youth Conditioning Specialists. Visit www.IYCA.org for more information.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
7 dribbling moves!
Do the 7 dribble moves with a finish at the basket.
* Start with a low body balance base of support.
* Have a compact economy of motion.
* You make each move one from the right side then one from the left side.
* Start by spinning yourself a pass and catch down low.
* From here you circle tight and make a good direct or crossover move.
* Start from just outside the edge of the half court circle.
* After your finish at the basket you spin a pass and open to the big part of the floor while you catch facing.
* Then using the same move you break a press up the middle to half court.
* Then make the same move on other side.
* Then go back to the right side and make the next move.
* Do this until you have made all 7 moves on both sides.
* Start with a low body balance base of support.
* Have a compact economy of motion.
* You make each move one from the right side then one from the left side.
* Start by spinning yourself a pass and catch down low.
* From here you circle tight and make a good direct or crossover move.
* Start from just outside the edge of the half court circle.
* After your finish at the basket you spin a pass and open to the big part of the floor while you catch facing.
* Then using the same move you break a press up the middle to half court.
* Then make the same move on other side.
* Then go back to the right side and make the next move.
* Do this until you have made all 7 moves on both sides.
Monday, April 17, 2006
Getting Kids Active…
Getting Kids Active…
How do we get kids more active? Hello and welcome to this very interesting topic and a question that is a very important one to many parents and coaches alike.
In today’s world of bad food, bad exercise habits, and Video/TV screens of all sorts ruling our kids lives- our kids would rather play a sport game on a screen than literally play it – we need to HELP them get out there and get active. There is one other observation I have made in my travels as well – kids around the world have forgotten how to – or have no idea how to play by themselves or outside with friends!!!! So here’s the secret…Get Out There With Them!!!!
Usually when people read this they think they are going to have to be as active as their children and play chase and all those other games that kids play. Why don’t you start with basketball???? Here are some really simple tips to get this process happening…
1. Turn off the TV or Video Game – for the day, for the weekend – whatever – make it a “screen free” weekend – no computers, TV’s, video games – if it has a screen – it is off!
2. Don’t go out in the heat of the day – this is just not smart, try mid morning or late afternoon when the sun has lost a bit of it’s strength – this is meant to be FUN remember?
3. If you are actually playing basketball against your child/children, you will find that they will play for a very long time – for one simple reason – because YOU are out there with them! Kids just want to hang with mum & dad – wherever that may be.
4. If you don’t have a basketball ring handy, or the room to play a game, you can play bouncing games with a ball, you can play down ball, funny passing, dribble tests, there is one more that I found is awesome to do with little kids and keeps them amused for a long period of time – ready for it? Make a ring with your arms and let them either do shooting at you or let them have a little dunk session – kids LOVE it. All you need to do is stand there with your arms in a circle and praise them!
5. Commentate! Yes – kids love hearing their own name and especially in a situation like this – make it fun – you can even introduce them at the start of the game – let their imagination go wild – they can be just like the players on TV – getting introduced! WOW! If you want to take it one step further – put on a music player and have them introduced to some cool music – they go crazy – its great fun to watch!!!! (You can also do this if you don’t want to actually join in the game – they know you are watching them perform as well.)
6. Make it regular – when is the best time to do this? Well – there are no rules – in summer – why not after school or whenever is best for all of you to get together. Get your kids to invite their friends over if you want to have a game – or just make it family time. What about on a weekend at a set time say Sunday morning at 10am – you can then get the kids all excited about the weekly game challenge and that this week you are going to be ready for them – whether you play or not – make an effort in some way.
The upside of these games is this – when your kids get older – this is something they will bring up as a very happy memory and hopefully they will do the same with their kids. If we can all make a little effort – we can change habits in our kids.
And one last little snippet I heard at a tournament recently – “kids in sport stay out of court”. Enough said huh? Treasure these moments with your children – they will not last forever!
Any comments or feedback on this article can be forwarded directly to Bruce – bruce@billybounce.com
How do we get kids more active? Hello and welcome to this very interesting topic and a question that is a very important one to many parents and coaches alike.
In today’s world of bad food, bad exercise habits, and Video/TV screens of all sorts ruling our kids lives- our kids would rather play a sport game on a screen than literally play it – we need to HELP them get out there and get active. There is one other observation I have made in my travels as well – kids around the world have forgotten how to – or have no idea how to play by themselves or outside with friends!!!! So here’s the secret…Get Out There With Them!!!!
Usually when people read this they think they are going to have to be as active as their children and play chase and all those other games that kids play. Why don’t you start with basketball???? Here are some really simple tips to get this process happening…
1. Turn off the TV or Video Game – for the day, for the weekend – whatever – make it a “screen free” weekend – no computers, TV’s, video games – if it has a screen – it is off!
2. Don’t go out in the heat of the day – this is just not smart, try mid morning or late afternoon when the sun has lost a bit of it’s strength – this is meant to be FUN remember?
3. If you are actually playing basketball against your child/children, you will find that they will play for a very long time – for one simple reason – because YOU are out there with them! Kids just want to hang with mum & dad – wherever that may be.
4. If you don’t have a basketball ring handy, or the room to play a game, you can play bouncing games with a ball, you can play down ball, funny passing, dribble tests, there is one more that I found is awesome to do with little kids and keeps them amused for a long period of time – ready for it? Make a ring with your arms and let them either do shooting at you or let them have a little dunk session – kids LOVE it. All you need to do is stand there with your arms in a circle and praise them!
5. Commentate! Yes – kids love hearing their own name and especially in a situation like this – make it fun – you can even introduce them at the start of the game – let their imagination go wild – they can be just like the players on TV – getting introduced! WOW! If you want to take it one step further – put on a music player and have them introduced to some cool music – they go crazy – its great fun to watch!!!! (You can also do this if you don’t want to actually join in the game – they know you are watching them perform as well.)
6. Make it regular – when is the best time to do this? Well – there are no rules – in summer – why not after school or whenever is best for all of you to get together. Get your kids to invite their friends over if you want to have a game – or just make it family time. What about on a weekend at a set time say Sunday morning at 10am – you can then get the kids all excited about the weekly game challenge and that this week you are going to be ready for them – whether you play or not – make an effort in some way.
The upside of these games is this – when your kids get older – this is something they will bring up as a very happy memory and hopefully they will do the same with their kids. If we can all make a little effort – we can change habits in our kids.
And one last little snippet I heard at a tournament recently – “kids in sport stay out of court”. Enough said huh? Treasure these moments with your children – they will not last forever!
Any comments or feedback on this article can be forwarded directly to Bruce – bruce@billybounce.com
Friday, April 14, 2006
Key coaching points on dribble moves
Key coaching points on dribble moves:
1. When you get to the 3 pt. line use 1 dribble to get to the basket unless you hesitate to take the help out.
2. Do the moves at full speed game like conditions.
3. Chin ball when shooting lay-ups.
4. Circle tight with the ball on direct and crossover drives. Tighten up your game. Don't be loose with the ball. Be compact and have an economy of motion.
5. Start and finish all moves from a low body balance base of support.
6. Use all moves, but develop a go to and counter move.
7. After move go straight to the basket don't belly out.
8. Make moves right at an imaginary defender. Get the defender on their heels.
9. Go -when you first catch a pass, your the most open.
10. Use your right hand when going right, and use your left when going left.
1. When you get to the 3 pt. line use 1 dribble to get to the basket unless you hesitate to take the help out.
2. Do the moves at full speed game like conditions.
3. Chin ball when shooting lay-ups.
4. Circle tight with the ball on direct and crossover drives. Tighten up your game. Don't be loose with the ball. Be compact and have an economy of motion.
5. Start and finish all moves from a low body balance base of support.
6. Use all moves, but develop a go to and counter move.
7. After move go straight to the basket don't belly out.
8. Make moves right at an imaginary defender. Get the defender on their heels.
9. Go -when you first catch a pass, your the most open.
10. Use your right hand when going right, and use your left when going left.
32 point shooting
32 point shooting
*Five spots on the floor: baseline, wing, on top, opposite wing, and opposite baseline.
*You make 3 moves from each spot.
*The first is a 3 point shot (worth 3 points), the second is a shot fake one dribble drive to middle shoot jumper (worth 2 points) , and the third move is a shot fake one dribble drive to middle lay up (worth 1 point).
*So each spot is worth 6 points.
*At the end you shoot 2 free throws (worth 1 point each) for a total of 32 points.
*You compete against yourself.
*Make the moves at game speeds be tight with your game.
*The drives to the middle you will be using direct and crossover moves so step with the same foot each time.
*The moves from the top you can go either way, but be able to go both ways.
*Five spots on the floor: baseline, wing, on top, opposite wing, and opposite baseline.
*You make 3 moves from each spot.
*The first is a 3 point shot (worth 3 points), the second is a shot fake one dribble drive to middle shoot jumper (worth 2 points) , and the third move is a shot fake one dribble drive to middle lay up (worth 1 point).
*So each spot is worth 6 points.
*At the end you shoot 2 free throws (worth 1 point each) for a total of 32 points.
*You compete against yourself.
*Make the moves at game speeds be tight with your game.
*The drives to the middle you will be using direct and crossover moves so step with the same foot each time.
*The moves from the top you can go either way, but be able to go both ways.
Four main objectives for guards on drives
Four main objectives for guards on drives:
1. Create space between themselves and their defender.
2. Go north and south on drives don't belly out (straight to hoop).
3. Put your body on the defenders body on the start step.
4. Take your dribble moves right at the defender get them on their heels. If you get beside them or get them on their heels, they are yours.
what drive coaches nuts about guards:
1. When a guard just dribbles once and picks up his dribbel.
2. When the guard starts going east and west instead of attacking.
3. When a guard hesitates on passing, making the play, or decision making.
1. Create space between themselves and their defender.
2. Go north and south on drives don't belly out (straight to hoop).
3. Put your body on the defenders body on the start step.
4. Take your dribble moves right at the defender get them on their heels. If you get beside them or get them on their heels, they are yours.
what drive coaches nuts about guards:
1. When a guard just dribbles once and picks up his dribbel.
2. When the guard starts going east and west instead of attacking.
3. When a guard hesitates on passing, making the play, or decision making.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Coaching techniques on: ball fakes, shot fakes, and pass fakes
Coaching Techniques on: ball fakes, shot fakes, and pass fake
1. shot fake -the ball should go up while the butt goes down! The ball will go only to a point above the eyes. This is done so that the knees stay bent so if the defense comes out of his stance the offensive player can go by the defender without having to bend the knees again. Also, this motion creates a better shot fake
2. pass fake -look in the direction of the fake direction, show the ball and then pass in a different direction
1. shot fake -the ball should go up while the butt goes down! The ball will go only to a point above the eyes. This is done so that the knees stay bent so if the defense comes out of his stance the offensive player can go by the defender without having to bend the knees again. Also, this motion creates a better shot fake
2. pass fake -look in the direction of the fake direction, show the ball and then pass in a different direction
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Point guard Devan Downey
News from Cincinnati! First the coach leaves, and now there starting point guard Devan Downey has decided to leave Cincinnati, the latest fallout from coach Bob Huggins' ouster last August. Downey averaged 11.9 points and 4.3 assists as a freshman last season, Cincinnati's first in the Big East.
Dixon Funeral
Dixon Funeral: About 1,200 mourners attended Maggie Dixon's funeral in Los Angeles, five days after the 28-year-old Army women's basketball coach died.
Dixon, was the coach of the U.S. Military Academy's women's basketball team and sister of Pitt men’s basketball coach Jamie Dixon.
She died of an arrhythmic heart episode, but don’t know what caused it.
Dr. Christopher Bonnett, head of electrophysiology at Allegheny General Hospital, says most people who get arrhythmias are older and have had heart attacks and weakened heart muscles.
“But in my field, it’s not unusual to see young healthy people just suddenly have a short circuit where the rhythm goes fast, they pass out from a lack of blood flow to the brain and if not resuscitated, they die suddenly,” he explained.
Dixon collapsed Wednesday at West Point. That morning, she had breakfast with her brother, Jamie, had a meeting with the athletic director at West Point and had tea with a friend.
She was hired a few weeks before the season began, and led the Black Knights to their first NCAA tournament appearance last month.
Maggie and Jamie are believed to have been the first brother and sister to have coached in the NCAA tournament in the same year.
Dixon says Maggie seemed fine when they had breakfast together Wednesday, but at a friend's house at West Point that afternoon, she said she wasn't feeling well and collapsed.
Dixon, was the coach of the U.S. Military Academy's women's basketball team and sister of Pitt men’s basketball coach Jamie Dixon.
She died of an arrhythmic heart episode, but don’t know what caused it.
Dr. Christopher Bonnett, head of electrophysiology at Allegheny General Hospital, says most people who get arrhythmias are older and have had heart attacks and weakened heart muscles.
“But in my field, it’s not unusual to see young healthy people just suddenly have a short circuit where the rhythm goes fast, they pass out from a lack of blood flow to the brain and if not resuscitated, they die suddenly,” he explained.
Dixon collapsed Wednesday at West Point. That morning, she had breakfast with her brother, Jamie, had a meeting with the athletic director at West Point and had tea with a friend.
She was hired a few weeks before the season began, and led the Black Knights to their first NCAA tournament appearance last month.
Maggie and Jamie are believed to have been the first brother and sister to have coached in the NCAA tournament in the same year.
Dixon says Maggie seemed fine when they had breakfast together Wednesday, but at a friend's house at West Point that afternoon, she said she wasn't feeling well and collapsed.
Wichita State basketball is staying!
TURGEON STAYING: Wichita State basketball coach Mark Turgeon has agreed to a long-term contract extension, ending speculation he would leave for a a larger school following the Shockers' run to the NCAA round of 16. "I just want to get this out of the way: I'm staying," Turgeon said Monday.
The moves are starting already!
They started even early for Kelvin Sampson going to the Indiana's basketball. But Now it's Jeff Capel turn to take over as Oklahoma's basketball coach, Capel resigned from Virginia Commonwealth.
Capel, a former Duke player, was 79-41 in four seasons as coach at VCU. Only time will tell what he can do with program like Oklahom!
Capel, a former Duke player, was 79-41 in four seasons as coach at VCU. Only time will tell what he can do with program like Oklahom!
Did you hear about Ramar Smith!
First day of college basketball's national signing period, spring semester version, for the 2006-07 season.
Today's the day the Southeastern Conference gets a well-earned boost for its shiny showing in the NCAA Tournament.
Only it's not so much Florida that's set to harvest the fruits of its labor.
It's not Kentucky.
It's Tennessee.
Ramar Smith, a highly touted 6-foot-2 guard out of Detroit's Martin Luther King High School, ranked 34th in the nation by Hoop Scoop (if you believe such things) and 30th by Rivals (if you believe such things), promised to wear orange.
That would be Ramar Smith, Duke Crews and Wayne Chism. Crews is a 6-foot-7 forward from Hampton, Va., ranked 14th by Hoop Scoop. Chism is a 6-foot-9 center from Bolvar, Tenn., ranked 61st by Hoop Scoop.
Throw in Marques Johnson, a 6-foot-6 forward from Ft. Wayne, Ind., and Josh Tabb, a 6-foot-3 guard from a Cincinnati prep school. Both are well-regarded.
"It's pretty amazing what Coach Pearl has done," Meyer told the Tennessean.
Today's the day the Southeastern Conference gets a well-earned boost for its shiny showing in the NCAA Tournament.
Only it's not so much Florida that's set to harvest the fruits of its labor.
It's not Kentucky.
It's Tennessee.
Ramar Smith, a highly touted 6-foot-2 guard out of Detroit's Martin Luther King High School, ranked 34th in the nation by Hoop Scoop (if you believe such things) and 30th by Rivals (if you believe such things), promised to wear orange.
That would be Ramar Smith, Duke Crews and Wayne Chism. Crews is a 6-foot-7 forward from Hampton, Va., ranked 14th by Hoop Scoop. Chism is a 6-foot-9 center from Bolvar, Tenn., ranked 61st by Hoop Scoop.
Throw in Marques Johnson, a 6-foot-6 forward from Ft. Wayne, Ind., and Josh Tabb, a 6-foot-3 guard from a Cincinnati prep school. Both are well-regarded.
"It's pretty amazing what Coach Pearl has done," Meyer told the Tennessean.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Getting Kids Active…
Getting Kids Active…
How do we get kids more active? Hello and welcome to this very interesting topic and a question that is a very important one to many parents and coaches alike.
In today’s world of bad food, bad exercise habits, and Video/TV screens of all sorts ruling our kids lives- our kids would rather play a sport game on a screen than literally play it – we need to HELP them get out there and get active. There is one other observation I have made in my travels as well – kids around the world have forgotten how to – or have no idea how to play by themselves or outside with friends!!!! So here’s the secret…Get Out There With Them!!!!
Usually when people read this they think they are going to have to be as active as their children and play chase and all those other games that kids play. Why don’t you start with basketball???? Here are some really simple tips to get this process happening…
1. Turn off the TV or Video Game – for the day, for the weekend – whatever – make it a “screen free” weekend – no computers, TV’s, video games – if it has a screen – it is off!
2. Don’t go out in the heat of the day – this is just not smart, try mid morning or late afternoon when the sun has lost a bit of it’s strength – this is meant to be FUN remember?
3. If you are actually playing basketball against your child/children, you will find that they will play for a very long time – for one simple reason – because YOU are out there with them! Kids just want to hang with mum & dad – wherever that may be.
4. If you don’t have a basketball ring handy, or the room to play a game, you can play bouncing games with a ball, you can play down ball, funny passing, dribble tests, there is one more that I found is awesome to do with little kids and keeps them amused for a long period of time – ready for it? Make a ring with your arms and let them either do shooting at you or let them have a little dunk session – kids LOVE it. All you need to do is stand there with your arms in a circle and praise them!
5. Commentate! Yes – kids love hearing their own name and especially in a situation like this – make it fun – you can even introduce them at the start of the game – let their imagination go wild – they can be just like the players on TV – getting introduced! WOW! If you want to take it one step further – put on a music player and have them introduced to some cool music – they go crazy – its great fun to watch!!!! (You can also do this if you don’t want to actually join in the game – they know you are watching them perform as well.)
6. Make it regular – when is the best time to do this? Well – there are no rules – in summer – why not after school or whenever is best for all of you to get together. Get your kids to invite their friends over if you want to have a game – or just make it family time. What about on a weekend at a set time say Sunday morning at 10am – you can then get the kids all excited about the weekly game challenge and that this week you are going to be ready for them – whether you play or not – make an effort in some way.
The upside of these games is this – when your kids get older – this is something they will bring up as a very happy memory and hopefully they will do the same with their kids. If we can all make a little effort – we can change habits in our kids.
And one last little snippet I heard at a tournament recently – “kids in sport stay out of court”. Enough said huh? Treasure these moments with your children – they will not last forever!
Any comments or feedback on this article can be forwarded directly to Bruce – bruce@billybounce.com
How do we get kids more active? Hello and welcome to this very interesting topic and a question that is a very important one to many parents and coaches alike.
In today’s world of bad food, bad exercise habits, and Video/TV screens of all sorts ruling our kids lives- our kids would rather play a sport game on a screen than literally play it – we need to HELP them get out there and get active. There is one other observation I have made in my travels as well – kids around the world have forgotten how to – or have no idea how to play by themselves or outside with friends!!!! So here’s the secret…Get Out There With Them!!!!
Usually when people read this they think they are going to have to be as active as their children and play chase and all those other games that kids play. Why don’t you start with basketball???? Here are some really simple tips to get this process happening…
1. Turn off the TV or Video Game – for the day, for the weekend – whatever – make it a “screen free” weekend – no computers, TV’s, video games – if it has a screen – it is off!
2. Don’t go out in the heat of the day – this is just not smart, try mid morning or late afternoon when the sun has lost a bit of it’s strength – this is meant to be FUN remember?
3. If you are actually playing basketball against your child/children, you will find that they will play for a very long time – for one simple reason – because YOU are out there with them! Kids just want to hang with mum & dad – wherever that may be.
4. If you don’t have a basketball ring handy, or the room to play a game, you can play bouncing games with a ball, you can play down ball, funny passing, dribble tests, there is one more that I found is awesome to do with little kids and keeps them amused for a long period of time – ready for it? Make a ring with your arms and let them either do shooting at you or let them have a little dunk session – kids LOVE it. All you need to do is stand there with your arms in a circle and praise them!
5. Commentate! Yes – kids love hearing their own name and especially in a situation like this – make it fun – you can even introduce them at the start of the game – let their imagination go wild – they can be just like the players on TV – getting introduced! WOW! If you want to take it one step further – put on a music player and have them introduced to some cool music – they go crazy – its great fun to watch!!!! (You can also do this if you don’t want to actually join in the game – they know you are watching them perform as well.)
6. Make it regular – when is the best time to do this? Well – there are no rules – in summer – why not after school or whenever is best for all of you to get together. Get your kids to invite their friends over if you want to have a game – or just make it family time. What about on a weekend at a set time say Sunday morning at 10am – you can then get the kids all excited about the weekly game challenge and that this week you are going to be ready for them – whether you play or not – make an effort in some way.
The upside of these games is this – when your kids get older – this is something they will bring up as a very happy memory and hopefully they will do the same with their kids. If we can all make a little effort – we can change habits in our kids.
And one last little snippet I heard at a tournament recently – “kids in sport stay out of court”. Enough said huh? Treasure these moments with your children – they will not last forever!
Any comments or feedback on this article can be forwarded directly to Bruce – bruce@billybounce.com
Sunday, April 02, 2006
The state of Hoops Hoosierland!
"In 49 states it's just basketball ... but this is Indiana."
-- Video boards in Conseco Fieldhouse.
INDIANAPOLIS -- That declaration is meant as a rallying cry, a point of pride. These days in the humiliated Hoosier state, it should be viewed as a call to arms.
The state of basketball is lamentable in the state that loves basketball the most. And something needs to be done about it.
The nation's capital of hoops is convulsed in a full-blown, honest-to-Hickory identity crisis. The Final Four, the ultimate celebration of the game, returns to hardwood Mecca for the first time in six years -- and finds the holy land desecrated by bad ideas, bad decisions, bad teams and bad actors. From preps to pros, the franchise sport of Indiana is in lousy shape.
If the Wizard of Westwood has one more magic basketball act in his wand, he should use it to heal his home state. Alas, John Wooden is 95. The Martinsville native and Purdue graduate won't be here for the Final Four.
Perhaps it's a good thing, because Wooden wouldn't like what he would see:
The Prep Tournament
World-famous Indiana high school basketball, the stuff of myth and legend, ruined perfection by switching eight years ago from a single-class state tournament to four classes. The ultimate meritocracy in youth sports has become the ultimate mediocrity. More trophies are awarded; far fewer fans care.
"We had a national heritage that they just gave up," said Bobby Plump, the man who hit the most famous shot in the history of Hoosier Hysteria. It was the shot that gave little Milan High its miracle state title in 1954 over powerhouse Muncie Central and spawned a Cinderella story told a million times over, most notably in the movie "Hoosiers."
In 1962, a reported 1.55 million fans attended state tournament games. Now, Plump says, attendance is about one-third of that. In 1990, 41,046 fans flocked to the then-Hoosier Dome to watch Damon Bailey close out his legendary high school career with a state title. This year, having long since downsized from the dome to Conseco, a total of 31,828 fans watched all four state title games.
"The people have not embraced it," Plump said. "But I don't think they will admit they made a mistake."
The Prep Players
High school basketball has forfeited its charm, but not its talent. The state that produced Oscar Robertson, Rick Mount, George McGinnis, Larry Bird, Steve Alford, Glenn Robinson, Bailey and countless others still churns out great players today.
Problem is, they can't wait to get out of Indiana for college.
Last week Indianapolis Lawrence North High won its 45th straight game and third consecutive state title behind 7-foot center Greg Oden, potentially the best Hoosier baller since Bird, and guard Mike Conley Jr. Their college destination: Ohio State.
The two best talents in last year's class were big man Josh McRoberts of Carmel and point guard Dominic James of Richmond. They started as freshmen for Duke and Marquette, respectively.
In recent years the talent drain has taken Zach Randolph to Michigan State, Jason Gardner to Arizona and Sean May to North Carolina. In 2007 it will take Indianapolis guard Eric Gordon, possibly the best junior in America, to Illinois.
"About all our good high school players are going out of state," said Bird, now president of basketball operations for the Indiana Pacers. "...That's something that probably hurts more than anything. It's very important to try to keep our kids in-state. That's how you have an identity."
The Colleges
College basketball in the state has lost its leadership, lost its star power and lost far too many games. Ultimately it has lost its place among the elite.
Flagship programs Indiana and Purdue are enduring brutal times.
The five-time national champion Hoosiers have stumbled through four undistinguished, acrimonious seasons since a surprise 2002 run to the NCAA title game. That resulted in the firing of Mike Davis and the tepidly received hiring of Kelvin Sampson from Oklahoma -- neither a glitzy name nor an "IU family name."
Upon the announcement of his resignation in February, Davis declared, "What I want is for this program to be united."
Former Hoosier Ted Kitchel told the Indianapolis Star this week, regarding the Sampson hire: "I wouldn't hire that guy to coach my fifth-grade girls team."
So much for unity. The struggle for the soul of the Hoosiers rages on unabated, six years after it began with the firing of icon Bob Knight.
"The program has definitely been in disarray," said Bailey, now the coach at his alma mater, Bedford North Lawrence High School. "I don't ever want to put the blame on coach Davis; I think he was in a no-win situation from day one. He had some seasons a lot of programs would be happy with, but Indiana wants an opportunity, year in and year out, to compete for a national championship.
"It's lost a lot of support. Hopefully coach Sampson can get back some of that support. ... With the possible candidates out there, I don't know if we could have gotten anyone better qualified. I'm very happy with coach Sampson."
That's part of the problem: getting the top-shelf coaches interested in IU. You know the program has lost something when it offers hefty bank to the coach at Gonzaga and gets turned down.
The Boilermakers are working their way through the Comb-over Hangover, after excessive loyalty to coach Gene Keady led a declining program to rock bottom before the rebuilding could begin. Purdue has made just one of the past six NCAA Tournaments and is trying to relocate its old spunk.
The once-rabid rivalry between the two barely registers nationally and doesn't stir the same passions within the state.
"You don't have the dominant personalities that you did at Purdue and Indiana," said the coach who replaced Keady at Purdue, Matt Painter.
"Matt Painter will do well there, give him some time," Plump said. "They're so far down you have to give him some time."
Nobody else in the state is picking up the slack. Notre Dame barely made the Big East tournament this year and hasn't seen the NCAA Tournament since 2003. The normally reliable mid-major class of Butler, Valparaiso, Ball State, IUPUI, Evansville, Indiana State and D-I newcomer IPFW has combined for one bid the past three Marches.
From 1975 through 2003, the state put a minimum of two teams in the NCAAs every year but one. An Indiana team made the Final Four every year from 1978 through '81 -- and each year it was someone different: Notre Dame in '78, Indiana State in '79, Purdue in '80 and national champion Indiana in '81. Participation peaked in 2000 with six bids. Victories peaked in 1987 at nine, as IU won the national title.
Now look at Indiana's feeble contribution to March Madness: Over the past three seasons, teams from the state have earned two NCAA bids and won exactly one tournament game -- on a last-second shot at that, two weeks ago by Indiana's Robert Vaden against San Diego State. That's it since 2003. That's the worst three-year stretch in this state since 1966-68, a time when far fewer teams got in the tourney.
The Pros
The NBA's Indiana Pacers, for years one of the most consistent and stable franchises in a turbulent league, lost their all-time most popular player last year: Reggie Miller. Simultaneously, they've had their franchise sabotaged by the man talented enough to succeed Miller but misanthropic enough to undermine everything instead: Ron Artest.
Artest has poisoned the past two seasons for Indiana. In 2004-05, he touched off the infamous Malice in the Palace brawl in Detroit, resulting in a record 73-game suspension that torpedoed the Pacers' chances of seriously competing in the Eastern Conference. They plummeted from 61 wins the previous year to 44.
Then, after Indiana brought Artest back this year and Bird publicly stood behind one of the most unpopular players in the league, Artest repaid him by demanding a trade in early December. The Pacers deactivated him Dec. 12 and went 9-13 without Artest before finally unloading him to Sacramento for Peja Stojakovic Jan. 25. Indiana is currently 35-35 and in seventh place in the Eastern Conference standings.
"I ain't gonna sit here and blame it all on Ronnie, because other things happened, too," Bird said. "But in the pros, when you don't win, people are disappointed. I see it and I'm disappointed, too."
The State Tournament
The biggest disappointments in Indiana lie below the pro level. The college disappointments are significant, but none is bigger than the atrocity committed upon Hoosier Hysteria.
Understand that Indiana is home to 19 of the 20 largest high school gyms in America, topped by New Castle High, Alford's alma mater, at 9,325 seats. Understand that the Indiana State Library's Web site lists no fewer than 33 books on its shelves relating to high school basketball, including, "Somebody Stole the Pea Out of My Whistle: The Golden Age of Hoosier Basketball Referees." Understand that if there were such a thing as a state sound, in Indiana it would be a basketball slapping off a wood floor in an empty gym.
If you understand all that, if you grasp the folklore and the sport's place in society, you can understand what the state tournament used to be. For that, take a drive through the rolling hills of Southern Indiana.
On Indiana Highway 37 you'll see a sign outside Mitchell, pop. 5,000. It commemorates the 1940 state tournament runner-up, the Mitchell High Bluejackets.
Not the champions. The runners-up. From 66 years ago.
Now drive down the serpentine stretch of Indiana Highway 58 that leads you to Heltonville Elementary School, in the rolling hills of Southern Indiana. The limestone building was once Heltonville High, before it was swallowed by consolidation to create a larger countywide school, Bedford North Lawrence.
Go in the gym. There on one wall, near the exit, is a yellowed photo of the 1954 Heltonville basketball team -- the team that won the school's only sectional championship. Damon Bailey, Heltonville product, says the photo is still there.
The high school was closed 20 years later, but that team lives on in eternity in a town of about 500 souls. That's what this tournament once meant.
The 64 statewide sectionals were the foundation of the tourney: the first round, the local scrum that produced one champion to go to the four-team regionals. From there the regional champ went to the four-team semistate, and from there to the four-team state finals in Indianapolis -- where only one team was crowned king of the state.
In Lawrence County, the sectional was an eight-school brawl back in those days -- the little rural schools like Heltonville trying to knock off the "city" school of Bedford. School would be canceled and opening-round games would be played all day. It was the social event of the year.
And if a little school won a sectional, it was a ticket to local immortality. Just ask the guys from that '54 Heltonville team.
"For smaller schools, the state championships were the sectionals," Bailey said. "If you could come through the sectional and win it, you had that one great weekend of games to remember."
And there are road signs and faded pictures and old trophies all over this state, commemorating those victories.
That's the thing the Indiana High School Athletic Association missed when it dismantled Hoosier Hysteria and replaced it with its four-class, four-champion system, which sometimes sends teams long distances for smaller, sparsely attended sectionals and regionals.
Bird is one of the five most accomplished players in the history of the sport. He's done everything there is to do with a basketball: three NBA titles, three straight NBA MVP awards, an Olympic gold medal, first-ballot Hall of Fame status, ad infinitum. But ask him about the Indiana state tournament from his days at tiny Springs Valley High School, and his recall is as sharp as the epic '84 finals against the Lakers.
After winning its sectional, Valley was in against bigger Bedford in the regional and had a six-point lead with a minute and a half left -- and lost.
"My best friend missed three one-and-ones," Bird said. "I still get mad at him for that."
Larry Legend laughed.
"Everyone does."
The big thing that loss cost Bird was the chance to play a truly big school, Jeffersonville, in the regional final.
"That's what the state tournament was all about," he said. "You wanted to play against the best. We were a small school, but our goal was to get to the state finals. I'd rather play for one title."
Bailey makes a compelling case for a co-conspirator in the demise of Hoosier Hysteria: consolidation. The number of high schools in the state has dwindled from a high of near 800 to about 400, robbing small towns of their identities and rooting interests along the way.
"If you have seven varsity teams in a county, that's 70 to 80 varsity players," Bailey said. "If you consolidate to one school, that's 12 players. A lot of the consolidated kids' kids are now at the high school level, and their parents didn't grow up playing basketball like mine did. They didn't go to the gym every Friday night.
"That's what my dad did, and his dad did, and his dad's dad did. The student interest is not there as it once was."
Bailey, Bird and Painter all prefer the single-class tournament -- but they pale in intensity to Plump. The 69-year-old Indianapolis businessman who put Milan on the map led an impassioned fight for years against class basketball.
There would be no Milan miracle under the current format. Nothing to talk about for the next 50 years.
"Since they went to class basketball, Milan has been to the semistate twice, and nobody knows it," Plump said. "That gives you the idea that people don't care. The sectional winners in the old days will be remembered a long time after the four state champions are remembered.
"When you can play, you want to play against the big boys. You might get your brains beat out, but it won't be the last time that happens in life."
Basketball in this state is getting its brains beat out on every level these days. For the good of the game and the good of the people who love it more than anywhere else, that needs to change.
After all, in 49 states it's just basketball. But this is Indiana.
Especial thanks from:
Pat Forde is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPN4D@aol.com.
Check out the article on espn.com here And along with Pat Fore latest articles can be found here also
-- Video boards in Conseco Fieldhouse.
INDIANAPOLIS -- That declaration is meant as a rallying cry, a point of pride. These days in the humiliated Hoosier state, it should be viewed as a call to arms.
The state of basketball is lamentable in the state that loves basketball the most. And something needs to be done about it.
The nation's capital of hoops is convulsed in a full-blown, honest-to-Hickory identity crisis. The Final Four, the ultimate celebration of the game, returns to hardwood Mecca for the first time in six years -- and finds the holy land desecrated by bad ideas, bad decisions, bad teams and bad actors. From preps to pros, the franchise sport of Indiana is in lousy shape.
If the Wizard of Westwood has one more magic basketball act in his wand, he should use it to heal his home state. Alas, John Wooden is 95. The Martinsville native and Purdue graduate won't be here for the Final Four.
Perhaps it's a good thing, because Wooden wouldn't like what he would see:
The Prep Tournament
World-famous Indiana high school basketball, the stuff of myth and legend, ruined perfection by switching eight years ago from a single-class state tournament to four classes. The ultimate meritocracy in youth sports has become the ultimate mediocrity. More trophies are awarded; far fewer fans care.
"We had a national heritage that they just gave up," said Bobby Plump, the man who hit the most famous shot in the history of Hoosier Hysteria. It was the shot that gave little Milan High its miracle state title in 1954 over powerhouse Muncie Central and spawned a Cinderella story told a million times over, most notably in the movie "Hoosiers."
In 1962, a reported 1.55 million fans attended state tournament games. Now, Plump says, attendance is about one-third of that. In 1990, 41,046 fans flocked to the then-Hoosier Dome to watch Damon Bailey close out his legendary high school career with a state title. This year, having long since downsized from the dome to Conseco, a total of 31,828 fans watched all four state title games.
"The people have not embraced it," Plump said. "But I don't think they will admit they made a mistake."
The Prep Players
High school basketball has forfeited its charm, but not its talent. The state that produced Oscar Robertson, Rick Mount, George McGinnis, Larry Bird, Steve Alford, Glenn Robinson, Bailey and countless others still churns out great players today.
Problem is, they can't wait to get out of Indiana for college.
Last week Indianapolis Lawrence North High won its 45th straight game and third consecutive state title behind 7-foot center Greg Oden, potentially the best Hoosier baller since Bird, and guard Mike Conley Jr. Their college destination: Ohio State.
The two best talents in last year's class were big man Josh McRoberts of Carmel and point guard Dominic James of Richmond. They started as freshmen for Duke and Marquette, respectively.
In recent years the talent drain has taken Zach Randolph to Michigan State, Jason Gardner to Arizona and Sean May to North Carolina. In 2007 it will take Indianapolis guard Eric Gordon, possibly the best junior in America, to Illinois.
"About all our good high school players are going out of state," said Bird, now president of basketball operations for the Indiana Pacers. "...That's something that probably hurts more than anything. It's very important to try to keep our kids in-state. That's how you have an identity."
The Colleges
College basketball in the state has lost its leadership, lost its star power and lost far too many games. Ultimately it has lost its place among the elite.
Flagship programs Indiana and Purdue are enduring brutal times.
The five-time national champion Hoosiers have stumbled through four undistinguished, acrimonious seasons since a surprise 2002 run to the NCAA title game. That resulted in the firing of Mike Davis and the tepidly received hiring of Kelvin Sampson from Oklahoma -- neither a glitzy name nor an "IU family name."
Upon the announcement of his resignation in February, Davis declared, "What I want is for this program to be united."
Former Hoosier Ted Kitchel told the Indianapolis Star this week, regarding the Sampson hire: "I wouldn't hire that guy to coach my fifth-grade girls team."
So much for unity. The struggle for the soul of the Hoosiers rages on unabated, six years after it began with the firing of icon Bob Knight.
"The program has definitely been in disarray," said Bailey, now the coach at his alma mater, Bedford North Lawrence High School. "I don't ever want to put the blame on coach Davis; I think he was in a no-win situation from day one. He had some seasons a lot of programs would be happy with, but Indiana wants an opportunity, year in and year out, to compete for a national championship.
"It's lost a lot of support. Hopefully coach Sampson can get back some of that support. ... With the possible candidates out there, I don't know if we could have gotten anyone better qualified. I'm very happy with coach Sampson."
That's part of the problem: getting the top-shelf coaches interested in IU. You know the program has lost something when it offers hefty bank to the coach at Gonzaga and gets turned down.
The Boilermakers are working their way through the Comb-over Hangover, after excessive loyalty to coach Gene Keady led a declining program to rock bottom before the rebuilding could begin. Purdue has made just one of the past six NCAA Tournaments and is trying to relocate its old spunk.
The once-rabid rivalry between the two barely registers nationally and doesn't stir the same passions within the state.
"You don't have the dominant personalities that you did at Purdue and Indiana," said the coach who replaced Keady at Purdue, Matt Painter.
"Matt Painter will do well there, give him some time," Plump said. "They're so far down you have to give him some time."
Nobody else in the state is picking up the slack. Notre Dame barely made the Big East tournament this year and hasn't seen the NCAA Tournament since 2003. The normally reliable mid-major class of Butler, Valparaiso, Ball State, IUPUI, Evansville, Indiana State and D-I newcomer IPFW has combined for one bid the past three Marches.
From 1975 through 2003, the state put a minimum of two teams in the NCAAs every year but one. An Indiana team made the Final Four every year from 1978 through '81 -- and each year it was someone different: Notre Dame in '78, Indiana State in '79, Purdue in '80 and national champion Indiana in '81. Participation peaked in 2000 with six bids. Victories peaked in 1987 at nine, as IU won the national title.
Now look at Indiana's feeble contribution to March Madness: Over the past three seasons, teams from the state have earned two NCAA bids and won exactly one tournament game -- on a last-second shot at that, two weeks ago by Indiana's Robert Vaden against San Diego State. That's it since 2003. That's the worst three-year stretch in this state since 1966-68, a time when far fewer teams got in the tourney.
The Pros
The NBA's Indiana Pacers, for years one of the most consistent and stable franchises in a turbulent league, lost their all-time most popular player last year: Reggie Miller. Simultaneously, they've had their franchise sabotaged by the man talented enough to succeed Miller but misanthropic enough to undermine everything instead: Ron Artest.
Artest has poisoned the past two seasons for Indiana. In 2004-05, he touched off the infamous Malice in the Palace brawl in Detroit, resulting in a record 73-game suspension that torpedoed the Pacers' chances of seriously competing in the Eastern Conference. They plummeted from 61 wins the previous year to 44.
Then, after Indiana brought Artest back this year and Bird publicly stood behind one of the most unpopular players in the league, Artest repaid him by demanding a trade in early December. The Pacers deactivated him Dec. 12 and went 9-13 without Artest before finally unloading him to Sacramento for Peja Stojakovic Jan. 25. Indiana is currently 35-35 and in seventh place in the Eastern Conference standings.
"I ain't gonna sit here and blame it all on Ronnie, because other things happened, too," Bird said. "But in the pros, when you don't win, people are disappointed. I see it and I'm disappointed, too."
The State Tournament
The biggest disappointments in Indiana lie below the pro level. The college disappointments are significant, but none is bigger than the atrocity committed upon Hoosier Hysteria.
Understand that Indiana is home to 19 of the 20 largest high school gyms in America, topped by New Castle High, Alford's alma mater, at 9,325 seats. Understand that the Indiana State Library's Web site lists no fewer than 33 books on its shelves relating to high school basketball, including, "Somebody Stole the Pea Out of My Whistle: The Golden Age of Hoosier Basketball Referees." Understand that if there were such a thing as a state sound, in Indiana it would be a basketball slapping off a wood floor in an empty gym.
If you understand all that, if you grasp the folklore and the sport's place in society, you can understand what the state tournament used to be. For that, take a drive through the rolling hills of Southern Indiana.
On Indiana Highway 37 you'll see a sign outside Mitchell, pop. 5,000. It commemorates the 1940 state tournament runner-up, the Mitchell High Bluejackets.
Not the champions. The runners-up. From 66 years ago.
Now drive down the serpentine stretch of Indiana Highway 58 that leads you to Heltonville Elementary School, in the rolling hills of Southern Indiana. The limestone building was once Heltonville High, before it was swallowed by consolidation to create a larger countywide school, Bedford North Lawrence.
Go in the gym. There on one wall, near the exit, is a yellowed photo of the 1954 Heltonville basketball team -- the team that won the school's only sectional championship. Damon Bailey, Heltonville product, says the photo is still there.
The high school was closed 20 years later, but that team lives on in eternity in a town of about 500 souls. That's what this tournament once meant.
The 64 statewide sectionals were the foundation of the tourney: the first round, the local scrum that produced one champion to go to the four-team regionals. From there the regional champ went to the four-team semistate, and from there to the four-team state finals in Indianapolis -- where only one team was crowned king of the state.
In Lawrence County, the sectional was an eight-school brawl back in those days -- the little rural schools like Heltonville trying to knock off the "city" school of Bedford. School would be canceled and opening-round games would be played all day. It was the social event of the year.
And if a little school won a sectional, it was a ticket to local immortality. Just ask the guys from that '54 Heltonville team.
"For smaller schools, the state championships were the sectionals," Bailey said. "If you could come through the sectional and win it, you had that one great weekend of games to remember."
And there are road signs and faded pictures and old trophies all over this state, commemorating those victories.
That's the thing the Indiana High School Athletic Association missed when it dismantled Hoosier Hysteria and replaced it with its four-class, four-champion system, which sometimes sends teams long distances for smaller, sparsely attended sectionals and regionals.
Bird is one of the five most accomplished players in the history of the sport. He's done everything there is to do with a basketball: three NBA titles, three straight NBA MVP awards, an Olympic gold medal, first-ballot Hall of Fame status, ad infinitum. But ask him about the Indiana state tournament from his days at tiny Springs Valley High School, and his recall is as sharp as the epic '84 finals against the Lakers.
After winning its sectional, Valley was in against bigger Bedford in the regional and had a six-point lead with a minute and a half left -- and lost.
"My best friend missed three one-and-ones," Bird said. "I still get mad at him for that."
Larry Legend laughed.
"Everyone does."
The big thing that loss cost Bird was the chance to play a truly big school, Jeffersonville, in the regional final.
"That's what the state tournament was all about," he said. "You wanted to play against the best. We were a small school, but our goal was to get to the state finals. I'd rather play for one title."
Bailey makes a compelling case for a co-conspirator in the demise of Hoosier Hysteria: consolidation. The number of high schools in the state has dwindled from a high of near 800 to about 400, robbing small towns of their identities and rooting interests along the way.
"If you have seven varsity teams in a county, that's 70 to 80 varsity players," Bailey said. "If you consolidate to one school, that's 12 players. A lot of the consolidated kids' kids are now at the high school level, and their parents didn't grow up playing basketball like mine did. They didn't go to the gym every Friday night.
"That's what my dad did, and his dad did, and his dad's dad did. The student interest is not there as it once was."
Bailey, Bird and Painter all prefer the single-class tournament -- but they pale in intensity to Plump. The 69-year-old Indianapolis businessman who put Milan on the map led an impassioned fight for years against class basketball.
There would be no Milan miracle under the current format. Nothing to talk about for the next 50 years.
"Since they went to class basketball, Milan has been to the semistate twice, and nobody knows it," Plump said. "That gives you the idea that people don't care. The sectional winners in the old days will be remembered a long time after the four state champions are remembered.
"When you can play, you want to play against the big boys. You might get your brains beat out, but it won't be the last time that happens in life."
Basketball in this state is getting its brains beat out on every level these days. For the good of the game and the good of the people who love it more than anywhere else, that needs to change.
After all, in 49 states it's just basketball. But this is Indiana.
Especial thanks from:
Pat Forde is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPN4D@aol.com.
Check out the article on espn.com here And along with Pat Fore latest articles can be found here also
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